As If I Never Existed
by Zosie
Summary: Edward leaves Bella after High School to go to NYU, and soon afterwards, she disappears.  While he is living his new life, Bella has been kidnapped by serial girl collector, James, and kept isolated so she suffers Stockholm Syndrome and bonds with him.AH
1. Chapter 1

As If I Never Existed

Prologue

Edward Cullen:

"Mike, the location is fine. I don't think we have time to find anything better, filming starts Monday regardless. Just go confirm with whoever you have to, and I'll call the studio."

Honestly, the man is crazy. All we need is a quiet street to film a single scene in. The car has to screech to a halt, and the police have to have a cross road to cut the driver off.

Mike and I had the perfect location here in the quiet seaside village of Meadowlea, and then today we went to do a last minute check and the entire street had been closed and the road dug up due to broken water pipes.

This street was very similar, nobody would even notice it wasn't the exact same street where our hero had run to his car in the very first chapter of the mini series. The women would all be ogling Jasper Whitlock, our star. Maybe he should take his shirt off before running from the law.

"Okay, it's all set, see you Monday," Mike called and got into his car.

Another crisis averted.

Now I have the whole weekend free and nothing and nobody to answer to for two whole rare and wonderful days. Maybe I should just book a room and stay away, that fight with Bree, my girlfriend, had not been pretty.

Bree is an attractive girl, and intelligent with it, she came third top of the Senior Year at High School and had passed with honors her course at university and now she had a very respectible career as a research scientist, so it wasn't that she was not able to match me in brains and conversation.

She was on paper what every man is searching for. Attractive enough to make other men envious, a smart dresser, a good and kind friend, a tidy home owner. We should be a perfect fit but for one small problem.

She was not my soul mate.

I knew that, but she had become a constant in my life and I understood she was pissed about me not taking things to the next level. I just didn't see the point. If a relationship isn't going to last the distance and go all the way to the inevitable conclusion, wedding bells, what's the point of an engagement?

None at all.

We gave it a good try, we dated for over three years. If there were going to be sparks and fireworks I really think they would have happened by now.

God knows I'd experienced sparks once before and I knew the feeling that I was searching for.

Senior Year, Forks High School.

Isabella Marie Swan.

We had sparked so brightly it was surprising the school hadn't burned down.

Of course, back then I was too young and stupid to know and appreciate what I had. When she got into SeattleU and I got into NYU, I knew long distance was not my thing so I ended it. And lived to regret that decision every single day since.

That break-up had been the hardest thing I had ever done and I truly did it for her as much as for myself, I just didn't know how deeply Bella felt for me and I broke her. Charlie, her father, kept in touch and told me how sad she was and by the time break came around and I came home to make things right, she was gone.

Nobody knows where and she has never been back, never contacted either Charlie or her Mom Renee in Florida. She just disappeared.

I hired Private Detective Jason Jenks to find her when the police had no luck but even he had absolutely nothing to report and to this day he's still looking.

I know, eight years down the track it's very unlikely anyone will find her but I have to try, and not only because she was the only girl who made my heart race and thump out of my chest, also because she needs to contact her Dad. Charlie has some health issues and if he dies without knowing his daughter is safe, I will never forgive myself.

The first guesthouse was fully booked but they suggested another down the next street and I drove past and had a good look. It looked nice, clean, decent and it was only for the weekend, and not only that, I was planning on spending most of these two days running on the beach. All I needed was somewhere to eat and sleep, really.

I could take the short drive home but I like this little seaside village and it's close to Forks, I could possibly even run home if I had to. My running has become a big part of my life and Bree resents that too. I just like feeling free and unencumbered.

Maybe I'll go down to the Res which is situated on the far end of this beach and go visit Jacob Black. He was Bella's best friend growing up and even though he hated me and resented my moving in on the girl he had ear marked for himself, once he got over the disappointment, we became sort of acquaintances, though never friends.

That happened when our girl disappeared and we found it easier to make a joint effort to find her, rather than each covering the same area over and over.

We'd agreed on a treaty of sorts, if you like. Both wanted the same thing, to know where she went and if she was safe and well and happy.

Nothing more.

Well, something more.

We both hoped to talk her into coming home with us.

He's grown up, become a man. The fact he was two years her junior no longer mattered.

I even thought if she did choose him and come back, I could live with it, just being her friend and seeing her happy would be enough.

I know, I'm a terrible liar. It would tear me up inside but just seeing Bella again would warm my cold and empty heart.

The landlady accepted my deposit and showed me to a little attic bedroom with attached bathroom and I flopped on the lovely wide old fashioned bed and before I knew it, I was asleep.

Damned if I didn't dream about Bella.

I always dream about Bella but this dream was different, not based on memories, but frightening. She was in the forest, lost and frightened and calling to me to come rescue her. I was wandering about in circles, maybe blind, unable to find her. I knew she was near and I knew she needed me and I alone could save her. There was nobody else. Wait. I heard my sister Alice's voice. "I will help you, Edward." It didn't comfort me, now she was here, maybe she would be lost as well. Now I had two people I loved in peril.

I sat up in a panic, my heart beating fast.

Shit.

That had been nasty.

The clock showed I still had an hour or so to kill before dinner would start to be served, it was available for guests from seven until nine pm, so maybe a walk along the beach would calm me down and let me just reminisce about the years I had spent with Bella Swan before I threw her away and broke her heart.

The wind whistled past my head and I tugged the hood up over my hair and put my hands deep into the pockets and hunched a little as I walked.

"Sorry," I mumbled as I knocked into a small woman hurrying the opposite way. She had a red cloak like thing wrapped around her body and only a single long brown tress of hair had escaped to flow behind her in the frigid breeze. I turned and watched her scuttle down the deserted street and my every sense was suddenly on alert.

My skin was prickling, my arm felt like she had zapped me with electricity, and my head was spinning as I caught the last of her scent.

"Bella! Bella Swan!" I yelled and chased after the small figure almost at the end of this road.

By the time I got to the corner and faced the way she had turned, she was long gone.

Don't even bother thinking I'm delusional because I didn't get a look at her face. I would know her anywhere. She always made my body react in that way.

Only her.

Nobody else.

I marched along the road, looking into every small shop, every cottage as I got past the edge of the village shops, and nothing.

The sun had set completely by the time I got back to the guesthouse and I almost went to bed without having any dinner but I should eat and I should sleep and I should work out what the Hell was going on. How could she be living a mere village away from Forks and not know every cop in the state had her picture?

Charlie himself drove through this very village weekly. He had never given up hope he would be the one to find her.

I couldn't tell you what dinner was but it was good and filling and I would have enjoyed it had my head not been threatening to explode. Back in my room, I grabbed my cell phone and called Jason Jenks. It was after hours and he was at home enjoying his own dinner but that was bad luck, I'd paid him plenty over the years and got nothing but negatives back for my investment.

"Jason, Edward Cullen. You still search all the villages around Forks, right? Even on the shore? I'm in Meadowlea and I swear I saw her myself tonight. I'm staying here all weekend but I would appreciate if you could come and search again. Monday? You can't come at all over the weekend? Fine, but I want a complete and thorough search, if she's here, you had better find her."

Sleep came quickly, strangely enough and even stranger, it was dreamless for once. I was up soon after dawn, retracing my steps again and again. There were few people about but I asked every person I passed if they knew a woman named Bella Swan. No luck. Maybe she had changed her name.

I went back to eat breakfast and talk to Siobhan, the chatty landlady but she shook her head. She knew most of the villagers and that name was unfamiliar to her, although she did know Charlie because of his frequent visits here to check no girl of his daughter's description had stayed in any of the guesthouses along the shoreline.

I searched my car for a map of the local area and decided to go see Jake before doing anything else but remembered at the last minute, I had lent that map to Mike. It didn't matter, many of the shops gave them away for free to tourists, I could go get one and maybe buy myself a Coke to get more caffeine in my system.

"That'll be seven dollars twenty," the clerk said to the female customer at the counter as I looked through the change in my pocket to pay for my own purchases. I glanced up as she turned to leave, same red cloak, same small figure.

Same Bella Swan.

I jumped in front of her and smiled into that face, forever etched into my mind.

"Bella, you have no idea how good it is to see you. Can we talk?"

She looked at me with large frightened eyes and then looked at the ground and tried to pass by me.

"Bella, it's me, Edward. Edward Cullen."

She looked up again and her lips moved as she silently repeated words over and over, and she looked at the hand I had placed on her upper arm.

"Bella, don't you remember me?" I asked, shocked. I was rather unique looking around this small area. No other men were six foot one with coppery hair and green eyes, I did think I was memorable to others even those who weren't fond of me. She must remember me. We had been everything to one another once.

Looking at me blankly with no hint of recognition, she shook my hand away and darted outside.

I tossed a five dollar bill at the clerk and raced out behind her.

"Bella, please, I know I hurt you, but please just talk to me. It's Edward."

She paused and looked back.

The look on her face was terrified and terrifying.

"I have to get back, I have to get back," she chanted. She was so frightened I let her go and she was gone, just like that.

Forgetting everything and everyone else, I ran along the road behind her and watched her run into the edge of the forest then it became trickier because the many paths worn by frequent walkers went off in every direction.

A quick scout around revealed a dozen or more little houses here between the trees and I knocked on every door, but to no avail. Many didn't answer, and the people who lived here didn't choose this location to have friendly neighborhood get togethers. They minded their own businesses and got on with their lives in privacy.

At least I knew she was alive, that was something. But could she truly have forgotten me so completely? Certainly it seemed I was not in her dreams as she was in mine.

It was as if I had never existed in her life.


	2. Chapter 2

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 2

Bella and I met in High school, and it wasn't one of those things when lightning strikes as your eyes meet across a crowded room things, it was deeper than that, more gradual. We were assigned the same table in Biology and at first I was too busy checking out the obvious stunners, Rosalie Hale for instance. She stood out in any crowd and every boy was thinking the same thing I was. How amazing she would look on my arm at Prom. How good it would be to have the envy of every other male student if that happened. How good it would be to touch those breasts and explore than Barbie doll body.

Rosalie was the center of every boy's attention and we would assess one another, and wonder who would win her affection.

I was always there, opening doors for her, carrying her books, laughing at her jokes, telling her how particularly beautiful she looked today, but my adoration was lost in the sea of boys who had experience and knew how to catch her eye and her heart.

My brother Emmett was actually the victor in that little chase and the rest of us moved on, but that didn't mean we didn't watch them together and envy the shit out of Emmett.

Once it was clear they were a couple and that was not going to change, the lesser girls started to catch our eyes.

I'm not saying for one minute that Bella Swan was less attractive than Rose, just that her beauty was more subtle. You didn't stare at her chest and imagine those orbs of delight in your hands and mouth; while her body was shapely and nicely turned, it was other things you noticed. Like her eyes. Deep, soft, velvety, you tended to get lost inside them. Or her smile. She didn't smile all the time like Rose, she didn't laugh at your every witty line, but when she did smile it was genuine and you knew you had earned it and it made it all the more worthwhile.

Then there was her compassion. She was always the one who stopped to help that awkward new student who was madly pretending they didn't hate being the new kid, with no friends or even the knowledge of how to get from one class to the next. Bella wouldn't say a word, she would just drift from our group and go walk with the newbie and assure them it had been just the same for her when she first came to this school, and things would get better.

She never judged anyone. Unlike Rose and the other Beauty Queens, Bella found each and every student interesting and when Mike would tease her about her latest 'stray dog', she would smile and say everyone had their own story and all of us could learn from one another's struggles.

You could see the change in front of your eyes, the next day instead of hiding in the shadows and cringing at any attention, the newbie would walk in confidently, find Bella with their eyes, and she would nod and smile and beckon them to come sit with us, and they would dash gratefully to her side. She would urge whoever sat beside her to move away and let the new girl, or boy, have the spot beside her and then she would include them in our conversation. Emmett would boast about his football win, and Bella would comment that "Tim" or "Daniel" were into sport as well, and had played in their last school's team and Emmett would suddenly have something in common and start asking the boy about scores and plays and whatever sports jocks discussed.

Jessica would begin one of her long soliloquies about what exciting events had happened at her after school hobby groups and Bella would comment that "Jane' or "Erica" actually won an award once for her bowling or horse riding and Jess would realise the new girl existed and start talking to her.

Bella just had this way of getting people to tell her their life stories within days of meeting them, then she was like some matchmaking agency, looking for matches, looking for others of the established pack who had something in common, and the newbie was absorbed and one of us within a week.

Then they no longer needed her and she would smile at the new friendships she had helped create and turn her attention to that girl that was suffering because she just got dumped, and her whole game would change. Either she would just listen, or if she sensed the girl needed more, she would be subtly asking that shy boy from Economics to join us, or take the girl to the weekend school football game to check out the unattached players, or just point out the less than obvious joys of being free and unattached for a while, and include the girl in her weekend plans that usually included my sister Alice amongst Bella's group of girl's.

The teachers adored her, she was first with her hand up, first to volunteer, yet she never had that air the brown noses had. There was no desperation to be Teacher's Pet, she just liked being helpful and never resented it when another student got voted into any position instead of her.

When you were bummed out about the marks you got in an exam, Bella would be there, pointing out there was always the next exam, and offer to study with you and help you on your weaker points of algebra or whatever, and if she didn't take that class, she always knew someone else who did and before you knew it, she had charmed that student into helping you instead.

A few words of flattery, a word of praise about how easily you understood calculus with your superior brain and you were left begging her to allow you to help that less fortunate student. You wanted Bella to see you as being as compassionate as she was, it was just a gift she had.

Then one day, while looking for your friend, you would suddenly notice, although she didn't have the striking figure Rose had or the obvious beauty, she did have some thing even better.

She had the ability to make you feel good about yourself and let's face it, we all like that. What you took away from time with Bella was a sense of having totally enjoyed her company, and a need suddenly unearthed to be a better man. You wanted to help others, you wanted to take that wallflower to the next dance because although you had no interest in her yourself, you knew it would make the other boys open their eyes and see her, and even if it was only because she was on your arm, you knew it was a nice thing to do. By the end of the night some boy would have stepped forward and boldly asked her to dance and you could run to Bella, and wait for her few words of praise and know you just earned yourself her approval again.

She made you glow inside, she made you want to help others.

Then came the night of the Winter Dance, and I had done my bit, I had accompanied Lily or Millie, whatever her name was, and Stewart had shyly taken her off to get punch, and Bella had smiled my reward at me, and I decided I needed more, I wanted to dance with her. She was standing with Alice and Jasper Whitlock, my friend from way back, playgroup days , we had grown up together and I had no memories of life before I met Jasper. But she was alone. She had come with Tyler, who was floundering after his girlfriend of three years had dumped him out of the blue, but one date with Bella Swan and his confidence was back and he was chatting up Lauren and taking her on the dance floor, with a look on his face that told us all, he was moving on finally.

"It looks like your job here is done," I said softly to Bella and she smiled.

"Thanks for bringing Lily, she never gets invited to these dances and she's never game to come alone. Walking in on Edward Cullen's arm would have been the highlight of her high school career. I think she and Stewart will be a great couple, they are so alike. He's just so shy, it took seeing you with 'his' girl to make him get the courage to ask her to dance. I think your job here is done, too, Edward. Nice."

"So, here we are, Bella Swan and Edward Cullen, dateless. Maybe we should dance together so nobody notices," I joked. Like Bella would ever be without a dance partner for more than three minutes. Mike must have been outside grabbing a quick smoke or in the john to be missing this opportunity to grab her alone.

"Where's Newton, I thought he would have his greasy hands on you the minute you palmed off Tyler," I said.

"Edward, I didn't palm off Tyler, I just commented how nice Lauren looked and reminded him about the crush they had on one another in elementary school and pointed out she had come alone tonight, so maybe this was a second chance, seeing he wasn't available at last year's dance to get to know her better."

"Very subtle, Miss Swan, Matchmaker. But I have to wonder, who is it Bella Swan wants for herself? When she's helped out every lame duck, who is the one she will want to keep and have as hers?" I mused, looking around at the other couples dancing beside us, and the single boys standing around the walls, and then the music changed.

"Is it Riley? I mean, all the girls like Riley Biers. Are you waiting your turn with him?" I asked, and pulled her automatically into my arms for the slow dance.

At first I figured it was static, then I realised we were on a polished wooden dance floor. Then, as it built up and made my skin tingle along my spine, I started to worry there was something wrong with me and mentally flicked through common warning signs of impending medical emergencies. Was I having the early signs of a heart attack? My heart was beating faster than usual, and louder. Was it a stroke? My head was fuzzy and confused, my senses filled with her scent, her aroma with such alluring hints of vanilla, strawberries, freesia's, God, was I hallucinating?

She felt so small and soft and so very trusting in my arms, I wanted to curl my entire body around hers and show her she was safe, I could protect her.

I frowned and looked down into those endless brown eyes and she smiled and I think I did have a tiny heart attack.

We both stopped moving and just stood there, feeling the weird but wonderful connection, and I kissed her without a moment's thought.

I had kissed girls before, I was Edward Cullen for God's sake, nobody ever refused my advances, but this was so different, so extraordinary, I wasn't even sure if I was still breathing. She filled my head and my body just pulled her in closer, like we had to touch at every possible point. I lifted her up, so her feet were standing on top of my feet and held her tightly and my mouth just refused to end the kiss and put her down again.

Gradually, the sound of girls giggling and boys coughing in embarrassment at our little display filtered through, and I reluctantly took my lips from hers.

She was as shocked as I was, and the world stood still as we just gazed into one another's eyes and wondered what the fuck was happening.

It was as if we were two magnets but we had never drifted close enough to one another's range of attraction and now we had, we could not be parted. Like we were two planets who depended on one another to keep our orbit. Like two pieces of a very small puzzle, and now we fit together and became the whole picture.

It was never a conscious decision, we just were.

She was mine, and I knew without a single doubt, I was hers and that was just how it has to be, too keep the Earth turning. Separating us would be wrong and dangerous and just like that, her good works when it came to taking the unpopular boys to dances on her arm, were over.

It was always me.

In fact, we had to be pried apart when someone else asked one of us for a dance and although we did accept, it was like an endurance test to get it over with and be allowed to let the pull rejoin us again. It was so bad being apart but the sweetness of being back together made it all worthwhile. Then we would be in each other's arms for the nest six dances to make up for that hollow sense of loss we had experienced.

The 'no kissing on the dance floor' school rule had no meaning for Bella and I, we couldn't control our lips, just like the teachers couldn't control the weather. They soon gave up clearing their throats and coughing in our direction because it was futile. The rule was silently amended to cover every other student but us. Nobody wanted body guard duty making sure Edward and Bella didn't take it up a notch in another PDA, they just accepted we were going to kiss and fighting it was pointless.

"It's unfair, Jasper and I got pulled apart and warned, again," Alice moaned. "We are like, two foot from my brother and he is constant kissing my best friend and they get ignored, yet Jazz just grazes his lips against mine and it's all ' Miss Cullen and Mr Whitlock, that will be enough of that'; it's like there's a rule for us others and a special dispensation saying Bella and Edward are allowed to kiss whenever and wherever they damn will please."

"Tell me about it," Rose agreed.

Bella and I said nothing, we were hardly going to object about special allowances made to suit us. Bella was friends with every teacher in the school and they were all willing to allow this little privilege to the two of us.

At school, our chairs were as close as possible to one another, and we sat together now in every class we shared. She still welcomed every new student to the school and got them a friend or two to hang with but now it wasn't her they got to sit beside, because that was my spot. It wasn't them she sat with in class, we couldn't have borne to be apart that long.

She would introduce the newbie around, find her or him a buddy and come back to me.

Even nights were endless torture, so the habit began. At first all I intended doing was sitting out in her backyard, staring up at her bedroom window, just watching for a glimpse but that proved to be not enough. I climbed the old apple tree instead and slid across the branch nearest her window and gazed inside. Bella was sitting at her desk, finishing some assignment and she was completely absorbed in her research, then she stiffened and looked straight into my eyes, with the cold barricade of glass between us. Without hearing anything, she just knew I was there.

She rose and threw the window open and grabbed my hand, pulling me inside her room, and minutes later, inside her bed, and then the very best inside place of all, inside her body.

I should have been shocked, this was Bella Swan. She didn't sleep with boys, she was saving herself for marriage, well, she had been.

She ignored the blood and the pain and just tried to get us as close as humanly possible and her body writhed with mine until we both fell back with satisfaction and the real need to gasp in some necessary oxygen.

"Bella, I.."

In truth, I didn't know what to say. I had never done the entire dance before, the other girls I had been with had all called a halt at some stage before the finishing line, so I had never been inside anyone.

"Shh, I wanted that as much as you did. We knew it had to happen, why not today?" she reasoned.

"God that was awesome," I admitted and pulled her close to me, so I could smother her face with kisses.

"We will probably even improve, with practice," she murmured and that was it, my erection was back. I was back inside her body and I hovered above her and stared into those brown eyes and just rocked slowly, gently, not in the same frantic way it had been the first time. That time had been all about the ending, this time it was about the journey, the long, slow, delicious journey.

She raised to meet my every thrust, and the shock of electrical current hit as our bodies met and ground against one another for that moment of absolute pleasure each time. It was almost sad and wrong to end it, but of course, nobody as new to this as I was could last long, and we both sighed with contentment as we peaked together and I grabbed her shoulders and kept us still while our joining pulsed and sang and sent shivers along our spines.

"That's just..."

"It is."

It was so much more than I had ever expected.

My fantasies had been that I would experience sex for the first time with Rose or someone showy and glamorous like her, and it would be great fun and a complete thrill, but meaningless.

This was so meaningful, we lay together, both staring at the ceiling, neither wanting the other to see the tears coursing down our faces. It was like being reborn, finding religion, starting to live.

Of course it was addictive, of course we wanted to feel those sensations again and again, and we did. The first time was always the same, fast and frantic, the urge to explode too strong to ignore. The second time was always slow, delicious, patient, but then the third would be something new, a new position, a new pace, and a new orgasm at the end.

There was no place I couldn't touch, no entry barred to me, but backdoor sex was not the thrill we imagined and we crossed that off our list quickly. It had hurt Bella and the one thing I never wanted to do was cause her any kind of pain. Of course, she had tried to hide her agony and had not told me to stop, but I felt her body's lack of involvement and response, and she had always responded so easily to my touch, so I withdrew and turned her over, kissing away the telltale tears.

"Why didn't you say something, why didn't you tell me to stop?" I demanded quietly.

"I wanted to give you everything," she replied.

"Oh Bella, you already do. Just breathing is enough, just being with you is more than I ever deserved."

I ran a warm bath and lay her back against my chest, inside my legs and washed away the hurt and pain and kissed her better every place I could reach.

"You must always tell me if I hurt you, promise?" I asked.

She nodded and swallowed the painkillers I had placed beside the tub. I lay with her and topped up the hot water when necessary until she felt okay again, then we lay together all night, just stroking one another's torso's, just recovering.

I wasn't disappointed, I don't know why we even tried that. I think, like she wanted to give me everything, I just wanted to experience everything possible with her.

"Hey, we tried it, we didn't like it, it's off the menu," I assured her.

"Are you just saying that because it was bad for me?" she asked.

"No, Baby, I like it better inside your pussy, there it hugs me in tight along my length, the only thrill in backdoor sex is the tightness of the opening, inside is just a vacuum. It's not that good."

She was happy again and next morning she gave me her very first blow job, which blew my mind. I had been the recipient of that type of sex before but never, ever like this.

Her mouth was just so wet and warm and amazing and when she swallowed...

I had never offered to give any other girl pleasure that way in return, but this was Bella, I would do anything for her and actually, feeling her respond to my tongue, feeling her writhe as I sucked her in and stroked with my tongue, feeling her let go and explode on my mouth, I really was shocked to enjoy giving as much as I had taking.

It completely made up for the other fiasco, from then on mouths became part of our nightly ritual.

She had been safely on The Pill Thank the Gods because I had not even thought to ask such a basic yet vitally important question, yet the first time I had not even paused to grab that condom, ever present, ever hopeful in my jeans pocket.

It was only later when we were showering away the blood that I even remembered and she assured me she would have never allowed that to happen had there been the risk of stuffing up our lives at this early stage. She was aware enough to be looking out for us even if I was lost in the fog of her touch and beauty.

We slept together in both senses every night, not even breaking our routine when she bled, it was hardly a reason to miss out on the pleasure we shared together.

My parents of course, became aware of my absence once dinner was done, but they were both philosophical that this was always going to happen at some point and they didn't even try to stop me going.

Carlisle gave me a quick update on contraception, responsibility and showing respect for my partner and I took Bella home to meet them properly. They already knew her of course, it was Forks, nobody remained a stranger for long in that village. My father was her doctor and no doubt had prescribed that Pill that saved us any heartache.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you Totteacher, I can always count on you.

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 3

Breaking up is never easy and I didn't do it lightly. But we were young and free and inexperienced, you don't tie yourself and your girl down right out of High School.

Many couples broke up for those very reasons, and long distance affairs were always doomed to fail. Why not accept that inevitability now and save us both the heartache?

At first, being apart from Bella at college was like I had lost half of myself but I was a young man with needs and soon those needs were calling out to be satisfied and that's when I met Tanya Denali. To say she was stunning to feast your eyes on was like saying a tsunami was a little damp. Her figure made Rose's look too obvious, too Barbie doll. Tanya was just amazing to look at and my body knew it wanted to touch hers.

Luckily she was not immune from my charms and she was in my bed within the first month. Her dorm was in the same building as mine so many a night I 'lost my way' and ended up in her bed instead, and nobody bothered doing anything about that. It was college, these things were happening all over. You didn't try to blatantly move in together but if your bed was empty for weeks on end, nobody cared. If you had a room mate, he was grateful for the privacy to bring his girls back.

Tanya was older than me, by a few years, and something of a professional student. Her parents were willing to pay her fees year after year and it didn't hit me for a while, they knew this was the only way she would make a good marriage with a man sufficiently educated to make a good living in the future, to keep up with the lifestyle she wanted.

No grocery clerk or burger flipper would do for their daughter. Tanya was only ever dating professional men, medical students, students taking law courses, men of substance. I'm pretty sure she checked out your car before she even looked your way, but my body was so parched from being torn away from Bella that I didn't even care and I was generous to a fault with her and paid for every date and every little trinket that caught her eye. She liked diamonds and I liked the reward handing her a tennis bracelet or stunning necklace earned me. For the entire first year, my body was sated and happy and my mind was put on hold. I kept up my grades and studied and handed in every paper required of me, but I did all that on rote, I had the brains to be able to keep up the work without letting my lessons take over the much larger part of my brain that was thinking of Tanya and her sexual acrobatics.

My fitness level increased, and I even took up running to improve my stamina, because boy, this girl knew how to party all night in the confines of her bed.

It was only at the end of year party that I even realised Tanya was nothing more than that, just a gorgeous body who knew how to bend and twist and blow your mind, but she had absolutely nothing more to offer.

The other students at our table were discussing the possibility we may soon have a worldwide crisis on our hands with the rumored millennium bug and she pulled out a nail file and started working on her manicure as the rest of us debated whether this was even real or just another drama invented to take our minds of the state of the country and the wars we were involved in.

Angela Webber had been valedictorian the Senior Year I was at Forks High but I had never noticed her unless she was walking to the front of the assembled students to receive yet another award for her academic brilliance. As a girl, she held no charms at all for me, because I had Bella.

I knew she existed, I knew she beat even my high scores, but I was happy to come in second place. I had a life outside of school, unlike her. I had balance, I had love and affection and my soul mate, she just had her education and if it made her happy to always top every class, why would I even rock her boat? I could have, I could have taken time to study and up my marks by that one or two she beat me by, but that would have taken time away from being with Bella so I was happier just accepting second place with no effort.

When the millennium conversation had been hotly debated by every other student except my date, we moved on to the controversial idea Angela raised. She was convinced before another decade passed, America would have a black President.

Tanya just snorted, but the rest of us wanted to explore this possibility. The time was coming, it was entirely possible. Some of us tossed around names of possible candidates and Angela shot them down with intelligent well thought out arguments as to why each person was unsuitable and would not be the one.

As the hours went by, I was buzzing, I felt like a thirsty man who had crawled across a desert and finally found water.

As the evening ended, I had an epiphany.

Tanya and I were really no more than friends with benefits. She would never be my intellectual equal and she was draining my very soul. My body loved hers, that was never in question, but it was a pairing based on a single basic need. She fulfilled that need and passed on the knowledge she had gained from her many former lovers but she had nothing else to offer, nothing at all. We had rarely spoken, I realised in shock. We had never debated or discussed anything more than the time we would meet up and whose dorm room was the better choice based on the activities of our room mates.

The longest conversations were 'yeah baby, just there, just like that' and 'oh Edward, don't stop, keep going, God, yes."

Suddenly what she offered was just not enough.

We didn't split in some dramatic scene with her sobbing and begging me not to go, or me being harsh and and telling her she wasn't what I needed, it was just a subtle gradual decline in my visits to her room. I stopped her coming to mine completely, I think I told her my roomie had a proper relationship going with his girl and needed the space and I found myself heading more and more often to the library where Angela held her study group than to Tanya's bed of pleasure.

She noticed, but she soon started seeing other guys again like she had before we paired up, and my increasingly frequent absences just became the norm, until I didn't bother knocking any more at all.

My brain was on fire with Angela, much the way my body had been with Tanya.

We couldn't wait to get together to discuss the latest updates in politics, religion, anything that took intelligence to dissect, we discussed at length. The sex just sort of happened, sometimes our bodies craved to be satisfied in that way so we would stop talking long enough to scratch that itch but even while we showered together afterwards, one of us would start telling the other of the ridiculous blunder one of our professors had made, some mixed up theory they had tried to pretend was based on fact, but we knew better, and we would dissect his words and amend his obviously faulty data. It was satisfaction of another kind. Satisfaction of the mind.

Angela and I moved in together when we had been dating a whole year and things had not even started to weaken between us. I was sure this woman was the one I wanted to be with, I needed her cleverness to challenge my own, I needed the conversation, the desire to learn, the knowledge she was my equal. We could do anything together, she would some day end up our first female President and I would be her right hand man, her advisor, her muse, her behind the scenes equal partner.

It was another two years before I even felt the fist cracks appear.

Alice and Jasper were getting married, that was a given, it was always going to end this way. Angela didn't want to be bridesmaid, she hated all things girlie and even wearing a dress was a challenge for her. I had never known a female less interested in clothing. To her so long as it covered your body and was suitable for the weather, it was fine.

Alice of course, despaired of her attitude and bought most of Angela's clothes herself, because she recognised that would be the only way the girl wore anything apart from sensible autumn toned garments.

"Color, shape, design," Alice would cry in despair as Angela grabbed four identical pairs of brown pants because they fit her and were right for the cold weather.

"Angela, they come in seven colors! Seven! Why not get a charcoal pair, and maybe something brighter, look, red is nice. And the blue is lovely. And you could buy so many pretty tops to mix and match with all these florals being in this season. Look at this blouse, it would go with all those pants, it has every color. Or this striped top, look at how the blue in it and in the pants would brighten your blue eyes and make them pop."

"I have blue eyes?" Angela wondered aloud. She had seriously never noticed.

I laughed, Alice was flogging a dead horse and my girlfriend grabbed four brown long sleeved Tshirts and a brown jacket that was on special, without even trying it on, and tossed the pile of clothing on the front counter.

"No," Alice shrieked, trying to add several of her own choices to the lot.

"Alice, you want to buy me yet more clothing that will sit in the top of my closet and never be worn, fine, but I'm not paying for it."

"Angela, please. I'm happy to pay for these, but would you just do me one favor and try the coat on! You will be wearing that until you graduate no doubt, could you just try it on and see how it sits? How do you know that style will compliment your body type?"

"Alice, it's my size, and the color is fine, and have I ever cared about complementing my anything? No. Move away. I have a study session in fifteen minutes. Edward, would you mind? I really need to be there to open the forum."

I accepted her card and she ran off, and I took her clothes back with me and put them in our apartment. Looking through her side of the closet, I did notice everything was a shade of brown, or tan, or cream, or beige, see, she did have a variety of tones. Alice was wrong.

It was certainly easier than the hours Tanya had spent in the Mall though to be honest, she had rarely even asked me to go with her and I had gladly avoided that form of Hell. I suggested Alice go with her instead and that was it. Two fashionaholics out together and it gave me time to sleep off my exhaustion from my all night sessions in Tanya's bed.

The shopping trip to buy Angela's new frock was excruciating for us all. Alice really wanted both bridesmaids to have custom made dresses but Angela argued she didn't have time for fittings and such so Alice had to accept off the peg, and that hurt her. But she found two plum colored frocks in a wedding boutique and I forced Angela to come try hers on, swearing it would be a one off.

The dresses were lovely, and even Alice was mollified, and Esme was thrilled with them too.

"God, aren't they a little gaudy?" Angela muttered and I couldn't help laughing. Not brown, therefore far too out there for my girl.

"For Heaven's sake, I can't wait to see what you wear to your own wedding, Edward will probably have to restrain you from wearing a potato sack. They come in brown," Alice wailed in despair.

Angela and I both froze.

Our own wedding?

I shook my head, that was not where this was headed, surely?

All eyes were on me.

"Oh Edward, you two have been together three whole years and lived with one another for two, of course you will marry Angela," Alice retorted.

I scragged my hand through my hair and was suddenly hit with the strong need to find a coffee shop.

"You girls continue, I need a caffeine fix," I muttered and took off. Marriage to Angela was not something I had ever considered. Living together had come about for convenience and it made logical sense. We spent every minute together, and we both hated living on campus, it just seemed sensible to share a place together. I had never assumed it meant anything more than that and surely Angela hadn't either. We were not Romeo and Juliet. We ignored Valentine's day with barely a comment on how it was merely a commercial trap to separate the sheep-like masses from their money. I had never bought Angela a single flower, or chocolate, or piece of jewellery.

She tended to forget her own birthday so I took that as a sign she didn't want it acknowledged. She would be mystified when gifts arrived in the mail from her parents, and would often not even open them, saying they were bound to be something unnecessary.

I asked her out to dinner the first year when I saw the date on her driver's licence and had erroneously assumed she was hoping I would know by myself, you know how females are. They think we have some superhuman ability to 'just know' the important dates without being told or reminded. I only knew we had been together three years because of the fact we were now finishing our Senior Year at college.

There were no marks on a calendar, no reminders on my cell phone, we didn't do that kind of shit. That was Alice and Rose, not Angela.

I felt like something had rocked our very foundations, that maybe there was a possibiity she wanted and expected more from me, something real and permanent, and I wasn't into her in that way at all.

My future plans included nobody but myself. The only time I had ever had plans that included anyone else where in High School, and everyone did that. Everyone imagined their first love was The One, and that one day she would walk down the aisle to you and you would smile at her and feel like this was right, and the way it had to be to survive.

I guess that summed it up. I had always needed Bella to survive, and that was the very reason I had left her.

It had been too scary, too early for those feelings. I hadn't lived yet, I hadn't played the field, experienced sex with other girls, known what it was like to be inside someone else other than her.'I know she thought that meant she wasn't enough, but that was not the problem, not at all.

She was too much.

She stopped my head from thinking, she fulfilled my every need, she matched me so perfectly it scared the Hell out of me. Nobody finds there one at eighteen, nobody.

Okay, so Emmett and Rose had and Jasper and Alice had, but they were the exceptions. People did not make a life long decision and life long choice while their brain was still growing and developing and changing all the time. It was a fairy tale, they would grow and probably even outgrow, one another. They would see I was right, in time. This fantasy that they had known their hearts so young was just an illusion.

Sensible people waited, and rode out the changes, and experienced different possibilities, they didn't tie themselves to someone in their teens, for God's sake.

It was illogical to even consider there could only be one person made just for you. What if that person was in a nunnery? What if they were born in Tibet? No, it was just an illusion.

Common sense dictated their were many possible lifetime partners for each of us, so now seemed like the time to move on and start looking properly, so I could show these people where they had gone wrong and stalled their own lives.

I had learned two things in college. One that Tanya was not a possible match, and two, that Angela wasn't either.

That was fine, how else do you find that best risk unless you try and compare?

I packed my bags and waited for Angela to come back from her group.

She didn't seem that bothered or concerned, in fact, she launched into a monologue about how it was probably the ideal time for this to happen. She was staying in New York for her internship and residency, I was headed for Seattle. I wanted to be closer to my parents and where I had grown up, she wanted to leave all that far behind her.

We stood facing one another and she offered me her hand, which would have been absurd with anyone else. We had touched each other's bodies over and over in the two years, yet the ending was with a handshake. I think that said it all.

X~x~X

**A/N STILL cant answer reviews! Now I get Message Type 1User does not exist or is no longer active.**


	4. Chapter 4

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 4

James POV

Ah yes, my little homing pigeon returns, as I knew she would.

As she always does.

Bella Swan is my biggest success, my perfect toy. I don't even have to punish her, just the threat, just a single word, or even a look, and she cowers.

"Did you get my cigarettes, Bella?" I ask and she lays the packet on the table and places the coins she received in change beside it.

"Good girl, you may go to your room and read."

She backs away then turns and scuttles to her bedroom.

Yes, she sleeps in the basement still but that is not because I can't trust her. I am simply aware that at any time, some busy body could burst through my door and find her here.

I'm protecting her from the outside word.

I open the packet and light up and I hear the hesitant sound of her footsteps back on the stairs again.

"Where's Jane?" she asks, trembling. She looks down at the floor, never into my eyes. I have trained her well.

"What happens if you disobey me, Bella?" I ask lazily.

"The Box," she whispers.

"What happens if you go outside without my permission?"

"The Box," she says again.

"What happens if you try and leave me, Bella? Jane tried to leave me. They took her."

She gasps.

"Yes, the men in the white vehicles saw her outside this house and they took her away. That's what happens when you go outside without permission. I didn't know she was going so I hadn't contacted the men to say it was okay, to leave Jane alone, and they caught her and took her away. Where did they take her, Bella?"

"To Hell," she whispers, tears falling.

"Yes Bella, to Hell. And who else had to go to Hell as well?"

"Her Mom," she answers.

"Correct. Connie had to die and go to Hell as well all because Jane broke the rules. There was nothing I could do. Once you break the rules, you die and go to Hell and your Mom has to accompany you. Don't worry though, you have been a very good girl and Renee is safe. She'll get an extra blanket tonight because you got back right on time and you didn't let anyone follow you. Did you speak to any strangers, Bella?"

She bites her lip and shakes her head.

"Good girl, because I would know. They would see and tell me. You can never talk to anyone, Bella. You know that."

"Yes," she answers.

"Now go downstairs. You can have Jane's things, she doesn't need them where she is."

In the bottom of the swamp.

I really thought I was making good progress with Jane. I kept her in The Box for three years and then, first time she is allowed out, she makes a run for it.

I shake my head because that means all that time was wasted, and soon I will need a new girl to train. So much trouble, not like my Bella.

I consider where I went wrong with Jane, compared to Bella.

Bella was broken when I found her. I had noticed her time and time again, walking in the forest, talking to herself, looking for "Edward". She called out his name and sometimes she curled up on the forest floor and cried, but then either she went back home or the local Chief of Police, Charlie Swan, would call out and she would go to him.

I mean, how could I not take her?

She was miserable, sad, lonely, lost without Edward.

All I did was approach her one day as she lay there crying, and smiled at her.

She didn't notice me for a time, then I said the magic words.

"Edward's back, he's at my house. He sent me to fetch you."

She had sat up immediately and stared at me intensely.

"Come on, he said he will have to leave again if you don't come quickly. He wants to explain why he had to go last time. He wants to stay this time, Bella, he loves you. Isn't that nice? I think he wants to marry you. We should hurry."

She stood up and smiled at me and I offered her my hand.

"My name is James and I'm Edward's cousin. He can't wait to see you again."

I had no idea who Edward was, of course and if he was merely a cat or dog, I was screwed but she didn't look like someone who had suffered a breakdown over a missing pet. It had to be a man, a husband who ran off with his secretary, a boyfriend who moved on.

"Edward's back?" she said, her voice childlike.

I almost reconsidered, she was obviously very disturbed and I wasn't sure if my plan would work with someone so crushed and beaten.

"Did his brother and sister come back too?"

"Sure, they are all here, all waiting. I thought maybe we could all have dinner together tonight. That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

We hadn't gotten far due to the slow unsure way she was walking when I heard the tired and frustrated voice of her father.

"Bella! Bella, come on, the game starts soon. Bella, I need you to come home, right now."

She hesitated.

"Well, if you would prefer to go to your dad, you should just go. I'll tell Edward you don't love him any more and he should go away again."

I didn't say it harshly or in any threatening tone. Just factual, easy.

"No, I have to see Edward," she decided and I smiled and pulled her along faster.

I unlocked the deadbolt and led her inside.

Bless my granpa for hating the entire world. He built this house as a refuge for himself when granny died as a young housewife, maybe from the beatings he gave her when he drank too much. He couldn't stand the crowds and noise and busybodies always checking up on him at his regular house in the village. Had he fed his children? Were they washed, dressed, attending school regularly? They pushed him too far. Those kids, my Dad and his sister, were his business, not theirs, so he spent his days building this house out here where nobody knew he had a small plot of land right inside the forest.

First he dug the basement, and it took him all of a year but he wanted a nice big basement. He even built a rudimentary bathroom in it, with a wooden box toilet that opened into a deep hole way down inside the ground. It had been a spring or a well, but had long dried up.

The claw footed tub was filled from a long once silver colored metal tubing that joined to the outside rainwater tank. The faucet was basic, you flicked the lever to the right and water dribbled out, you flicked it to the left and it closed.

It took hours to get enough water to wash in but you could fill a glass for a drink in ten minutes or so.

It was enough.

Enough for my little bird.

A strong and secure thick wooden door replaced the flimsy one he had built, I needed my bird to be in the dark, the proper dark, with no light showing between a crack or through a knothole so I spent a lot of money on that door and it's deadbolt. I hung it myself, it's not so hard if you know what you are doing. That meant there was still ample room left for two bedrooms and an open room which the stairs opened into.

Upstairs was just a regular house, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, a laundry and a sitting room. In the laundry was a line of cupboards that looked ordinary enough, just the last one had a trapdoor under the old piece of carpet on it's floor, and that was the way to the basement. You wouldn't find it unless you searched the place properly. I left the trapdoor open mostly, only shutting it at night, then I locked it securely.

My Bella wasn't going anywhere.

There was another trapdoor in the second but one cupboard as well, but it just opened into a hiding place where Pa kept most of his guns. I didn't tell anyone that. Bella thought it was the opening to another basement, and that her Mom was inside it. Never hurts to lie a little to my little bird. She lived in constant fear that if she messed up, I would go down there and slit Renee's throat.

She wasn't stupid, I went to the Chief's house now and then and stole things. At first, just days after she came to me, there was a birthday card from Renee in his pile of neglected mail, unopened since the tragic disappearance of his daughter, so I just took away the envelope and told Bella her Mom in the other basement wrote this, and she believed me. It was Renee's writing and all.

Then I stole a parcel the mailman had left for Charlie. It was a quilt made by Renee, of old Tshirts they got from places they'd visited as a family before the wife did a runner.

Course Bella got all teary over her Mom making that for her. It did the trick, nobody else knew every place they had traveled and bought Tshirts at, so I must be telling the truth, I must have her Mom in 'the other basement'.

My brother and I nicknamed the bathroom "The Box" and I locked him inside once when we were smallish.

I guess I was twelve and he was eight but he cried like a baby.

I kid you not. A man child crying like an infant.

Pa thrashed him more than he thrashed me. All I had done was lock him up for a few days, but he had come out trembling and crying and white as a ghost and real men don't let a little thing like being shut away worry them. Pa had locked me in there many times and I never broke.

They took him away after that because he told someone at school. Off to some hospital. Never saw the kid again. I didn't care, I didn't need him, and me and Pa got on just fine once he was gone.

My parents were long dead, my Dad was Pa's son, and Pa had an obligation to take us in so he did, and he'd done his best.

He tried, he taught me how to sneak inside houses when the folks that owned them were sleeping, and he taught me how to tell what was worth taking and what wasn't worth our time.

At first, the basement was just used for storage, until Pa sold on what we stole. Then he died and I buried him myself, out in the forest and kept going but it wasn't so easy for me. I didn't know his contacts and I got caught a few times over the years and even did some time.

The next time I came home here I decided to sell what was left so I stacked it by the roadside, I dragged everything down and by the end of the day I had seventy eight bucks and a black eye from one customer who recognised the old time radio as his own that was nicked a year or so earlier.

The only thing left in the basement was a moldy old suitcase nobody would have given me a single dollar for so I left it, and I thought maybe I should just bury it, when I opened it and made my discovery.

This was Pa's bank. This was where he had stashed all his ill gotten gains.

It was chock full of cash.

That changed things considerably. I didn't have to steal any more, or work, I had sometimes helped out in folks yards and such, manual work, cash in hand but those days were over.

I was sitting pretty and like most folks with money to burn, I wanted to start collecting pretty things.

Victoria sure was pretty back then when she was young.

Long strawberry blond hair, big juicy lips.

Joy was my next little birdie but she managed to kill herself just months after I took her. I made the mistake of not taking away the bath plug and she drowned herself.

Bella was the next and she has done way better.

She had to huddle in the bath under the running tap to get clean, no bath plug. Not again.

Five years in The Box, in the complete dark, with only me ever opening the door once a day to toss her some food, and she came round. Decided she liked me just fine. She would beg me to speak to her, to say anything.

I didn't speak a single word until she'd been here in The Box for three years then I started talking, just a little.

She hung onto my every word like it was special, and she cried when I left and shut her in again, so I started telling her about the world and how it had changed.

How the government gave bounty hunters white vehicles, and if you see a white vehicle, then you know they're watching you. I told her how the bounty hunters would grab anyone who left their houses without permission, so she knew never to try and escape because it was more dangerous out there than in here.

After five years in The Box, I let her out into the other basement rooms and gave her a bedroom. In it were books I'd taken from her bedroom at Charlie's house. She loves those books like they are her children. Reads them over and over. Must know every word by heart by now.

If she keeps behaving, I'll get her some new books, give them to her one each month or so.

Just so she appreciates them properly.

I have to read them first and make sure they are written about the olden days, back before the Government 'hired the bounty hunters' of course.

Classics are best.

About that time, Victoria made friends with her and I had two little tamed birds. I trust Vicky, she's been with me for many years. She likes playing with the other little birds but she won't let me have any fun with them, only with her. She thinks she's special because she's been with me the longest. I try and keep them all happy so I have never tasted the delights Bella Swan has on offer.

But one day I will.

One day when Vicky isn't with us any more.

Bella is good, cleaning the house, cooking meals way better than that lazy Vicky, so I started with the presents, the birthday card from years before, and the quilt.

Once she knew I 'had her Mommy here as well', she became very co-operative.

She progressed to being able to be trusted hanging out the washing out the back of the yard.

Never tried to escape, not even once.

Nowadays I can even send her out alone, to the shops and such and I know she won't go blabbing. She understands I'm the one keeping the bounty hunters away. She saw her picture on flyer's her Daddy regularly posts about town and I told her, any hunter sees her, she is done.

Gone.

Straight to Hell.

And so's Renee.

Vicky came upstairs and rubbed against my jeans.

"You want to have some fun, James?"

"Nah, I have been thinking, now Bella can be trusted to go out alone, we have to change her appearance or someone may still remember her. You go to the drugstore and get some bleach or whatever and we'll make her a blond. And get some scissors and cut her hair, it's way too long. Do one of those pixie cuts, it'll make her look years younger too. Here."

I held out a fifty. Vicky was trustworthy, she'd bring me my change.

"I'll be on the watch for white vehicles," she said and I pushed her out the door.

I called Bella back up and she made me a sandwich and a mug of coffee, just how I liked it, and I told her to eat as well, so she stood by the inner wall and ate a sandwich herself. She knows better than to go near any windows, even though they have curtains and she knows to keep absolutely silent when anyone comes here and knocks.

To me, the knock means they don't know me, to her, it means the Government is searching for her and Vicky and Jane, to take them off to kill them.

She never makes a sound.

I lock the trapdoor and put the rug back over it and shut the closet and nobody even knows there's more to this house than what they can see right here. Just an ordinary little two bedroom place, nothing fancy.

Rarely anyone comes but I saw a man today, he didn't belong in the forest and I locked my birds away and followed him. Though he didn't find my house, he did go to others and he's looking for someone.

Bella maybe, more likely Jane seeing she has been missing the shortest time.

Well he will need an army to find Jane, she's well weighed down and won't be surfacing anytime soon. Maybe the fish will eat her.

And my little Bella's not going anywhere. I can't even risk letting her out again for a few weeks now and that's a pain in the ass, because she's useful. Better than Vicky who moans about going into the village.

"You know what, Bella? Vicky and I have decided you would look real pretty as a blond. As soon as she comes back she's going to change your hair for you. It will keep the hunters away."

She looked at me wide eyed and nodded in agreement. Anything to keep those hunters away.

X~x~X


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

EPOV

I feel I have an obligation to go to Charlie myself rather than just call him, this is something I need to say to his face. Feeling torn, because the last thing I want to do is give him hope if there isn't any, I pull up and alight from my car.

He opens the door, and I'm shocked by his appearance. We haven't spoken in a while except by phone so I wasn't prepared for the gaunt old man standing in front of me. I almost asked if Charlie was here, I was so unsure that this could be him.

"Edward, come on in. It's been a while."

"Charlie, good to see you. How have you been?"

So inane, I can see how he has been. He's aged thirty years in the last eight.

"The same, Edward, the same. Never given up, though. I know she's out there and I know I'll see her again. This world or the next. I'd know if she was gone before me, wouldn't I? I think a parent would know."

"Charlie, I'm working over in Meadowlea."

He nods, he visits it weekly.

"I think I saw Bella. I mean, to me, I'm sure I saw her, but when I spoke to her, she didn't know me. Do you think it's possible she just forgot me? We were just kids, and it was just the two years we were together, but Charlie, I feel like I'd know her anywhere and she looked just the same. Still tiny, still has the long brown hair, it's longer now, but still thick and glorious.

Same brown eyes, same heart shaped face."

"Where was she, Edward?" he asks, his eyes scared to hope.

"First time she brushed past me when I was going to the beach for a run and I didn't see her face but she touched my arm and I felt that...thing. That connection we had. You know how it was for us."

"I know she lived and breathed you. I know nobody else really mattered to her any more when you two kids were together."

"Charlie, I, uh, knew her maybe better than you were aware."

"Edward, I did know you snuck in her window and slept in her bed. I'm a cop, don't forget."

"You let that happen?" I said in surprise.

"The one thing about Bella was, you knew whatever she did, it was because she wanted it to happen. She went on a date it was because she chose to. She let a boy kiss her, it was her decision. She never cared for the opinion's of others, if it was right for her, she did it. If it wasn't, then you would have had to chloroform her to get a single kiss if she wasn't willing.

She chose to let you into her bedroom. She could have locked that window shut, it had a lock. She could have called out to me, and I would have shot you, believe me. Any boy come making unwelcome advances to my Bella would have got a load of buckshot up his ass.

But she never said a word and she was always smiling, Edward. You made her happy. I wasn't about to put an end to that. Not that she would have let me."

I laughed, he was right.

Many a boy in High School had worn the red imprint of her hand if he tried something she didn't like. Mike had virtually had a permanently bruised cheek before he woke up and tried a new tactic, becoming her friend and hoping she would want to move on further one day.

"So, Edward, I know you wouldn't be here if you didn't believe in your heart it was her. But that's sure strange, her not knowing you. Come up to her bedroom."

I followed him up the staircase to the room so familiar I almost choked.

Her bed was there, just the same as it always had been. Purple cover, four blankets, four pillows, hers and mine. She liked full down stuffed pillows, I preferred flat foam memory pillows, indented to keep your neck straight.

They were still there, still together.

I hardly noticed anything else at first, my eyes were glued to that bed and the memories it evoked in my head.

"Look at the walls," Charlie said, sensing I was getting lost.

Every photo Bella had ever owned of us, or of me, was on those walls. Her birthdays, my birthdays, Prom, Winter dances, snaps taken by my sister, my brother, our Mom.

Us at the beach, in the forest, swimming in the pool below the waterfall behind our house, eating dinner, eating hotdogs around a campfire at the Res, Jacob watching, scowling; Alice with Bella and I, all of us, my siblings and Rose and Jasper.

Bella sitting on my lap, lying on my beach towel, on the sand, sitting in my car shivering because I loved the beach regardless of the weather, her not so much. She had on two sweaters, my coat and a beanie and two scarves and a scowl that would stop a clock and I was standing at the open car door, laughing at her, in my wetsuit.

Bella blowing out her birthday candles, her hand entwined with mine, making me stay at her side because I threw the surprise party.

Bella opening the first gift I ever gave her. A gold chain charm bracelet with a single charm. It was a crystal heart. I remembered that bracelet, I gave her a dozen other charms over the two years and there was that special one in particular.

She had affected me so much I would have done anything for her.

She wanted a charm that looked like the dog my family had at the time but nobody made charms of crossbreed dogs so I had it made.

LucyLu, the pesky white shaggy mutt she adored, who tried to sit between us on the sofa because she was jealous.

You would assume, seeing she was my dog, she would be jealous of Bella, but no. She adored Bella, she was jealous I got to sit with her.

My heart tore at the memories, how the fuck did I leave this girl? What was I thinking?

Just because I did medicine and made it all the way through medical school and am now a fully qualified doctor clearly does not indicate I am even the tiniest bit smart, because no smart person would let this girl go.

Many of the photos had been enlarged and framed, others were just pinned on corkboards, blu- tacked to the wall, or printed out on fabric to make the many little cushion covers lining the edge of the four walls on the floor.

Even her ceiling had the most amazing hand sketched drawings, copied from what must have been her favorite photos of us. There was nowhere to look and not see my face staring back at you, or gazing into her eyes.

I grasped for the bed and sank down, my eyes filled with tears.

There's no way she ever forgot me.

Nobody could live in this room and then not know me, even eight years later.

I reached out a hand and touched her face.

Cold, flat, nothing like the face I loved to cup in my hand as I kissed her.

"Charlie," I choked, shaking all over.

"See, she always loved you Edward. She would never forget you. I tried to take them down after she put them up, told her it wasn't healthy, wasn't going to make things better. I told her she needed to forget you and move on and I grabbed that one, there, the one with the rip. She hit me, Edward. My little girl hit me, for the only time in her life.

She screamed at me to go away, and leave her alone, and I never came in this room again.

I listened to her screaming for you, night after night.

But I never crossed that threshold again, she didn't want anyone to come in this room. She wanted the next person to enter that door to be you, nobody else."

"Charlie, why didn't you come and bring me back at gunpoint? Why did you let me go off and live my life so selfishly, so stupidly? I had no idea. I thought she would move on. I had no idea I meant this much to her. She was eighteen. Eighteen year old hearts change. They love and then they change, and love another."

"Was that how it was for you, Edward? Did you move on and love another?"

I stood and walked to the window, unable to look at the photos any longer.

"No, Charlie. I never loved anyone else. I tried, but it just never felt like she made me feel."

"Was it her, Edward? You know in your heart if it was her."

I turned.

"It was her, Charlie, and I'm going to find her."

X~x~X

Alice sat and listened and nodded now and then, all the while feeding mashed vegetables into the greedy mouth of the baby in the high chair.

"So, what are you going to do? You have to find her. She must have been in an accident, fallen and hit her head. Only amnesia would wipe you from her brain, from what you are saying. I must go and visit Charlie and see these photos for myself."

"You should, he's pretty sad and lonely, Alice. He needs some friends who knew and loved Bella. He told me he still fishes with Billy and Harry but they have their kids still. They have grand kids, something he will never have if I don't bring Bella home to him."

"Maybe she's married. Maybe she has kids already."

I considered her words.

"You could be right."

"Maybe she is happy where she is and doesn't want to come home. Maybe she eloped with some guy Charlie didn't approve of."

"Charlie told me she never looked at another guy after I left. Mike visited, but she wouldn't speak to him. Tyler and Eric went there twice but the same. Jake was even barred from her room and you know she always loved him, in a lesser way. He sent her flowers every week until she disappeared."

I straightened up and walked to the door.

"I never should have intervened. She and Jake would have been happy together. He never left and went off to New York. She would have had a normal life. Kids, a house of her own, marriage. Jacob would have looked after her. I was nothing but a selfish prick. Took what I wanted and loved her but left her anyway."

"Edward, it looked to us like you never made that choice, to love her. Like you could have stayed away after that dance. You were smitten. You changed completely. You even stood taller, stopped hunching. You have hunched again ever since you left her."

"Why didn't any of you girls punch me in the face and wake me up to what I had?" I growled.

"Would you have listened, Edward? You were bursting to leave Forks and explore the rest of the world. You were too big for this little village."

"I was selfish, Alice. I never thought of anyone but myself."

"True."

I rubbed my face and went into her kitchen for more coffee, refilling both our cups.

Jasper walked in the back door, a bunch of roses in his hand.

"Hey, bro. Filming went well today. You couldn't be bothered to turn up?"

"Sorry, I had to see Charlie."

He nodded, and smiled as my sister called out.

"Is that my Jasper home? Joshua, Daddy is home."

Jasper disappeared and I stood there listening to their greetings to one another. I had been wrong about them, they were more in love now than ever. Eight years had only strengthened their bonds. And created my nephew.

Moving closer to the door, I watched my best friend as he embraced my sister and they gazed into one another's eyes.

I had to look away, it was so painful to see they still had what I threw away like unwanted trash. No, look, Edward. That could have been you and your Bella. Happy, besotted, married with a kid like Joshua.

I left by the kitchen door and went to my car. I didn't belong there, with them. I couldn't bring my unhappiness into that place of love and worship.

Esme welcomed me inside her house and I lay on her red sofa and felt her eyes watching me.

"Something's happened? Something good? Have you decided to practice medicine?" she asked hopefully.

I know the fact I went through my course and internship and residency then walked away will always bother my parents but I'm just not ready yet. All that responsibility, knowing you have people's very lives in your hands. I don't know how I ever imagined I could handle that.

"I saw Bella."

"Edward! Where? How is she? Is she married? Does she have children? You must ask her to dinner, it would be so good to see her again. I told Carlisle she left of her own free will. She just needed to start her life over, away from us. How did she look? Was she pleased to see you?"

"She didn't recognise me."

"Of course she did. That's just the way we punish that man that leaves us. We pretend he was so unimportant we don't even know who he is. She knew you, Edward. What did she say?"

"She said she had to get back. Not to me, just into the air. It wasn't a conversation."

"Oh the poor girl. She must still have some feelings for you. Maybe she couldn't think of what to say."

"Mom, she did not know who I was. I saw no recognition in her eyes. Tanya pretends she has forgotten me but I can see she hasn't, she's just doing that, what you said. This is entirely different. Bella had no idea who I was."

"Edward, I've always visited Charlie Swan every week since she went. I've seen her bedroom."

"So have I. I can't explain it, Mom. How could she not know me? I would understand completely if she hated me. I hate me. It's easy to hate me, I've lived like I am the only one who matters. I decided we had to part, I decided long distance wouldn't work. I decided to screw Tanya for a year. I decided Bella had simply left town and everyone was over reacting."

"You hired Jason to find her."

"Mom, I did that for me. I just needed to assure my guilty conscience she hadn't done anything reckless. When Charlie called that time and told me how depressed she was, and I told him I'd come home for break and speak to her, I only ever intended telling her to buck up and move on. I wasn't coming back to propose or anything. I was happy with Tanya at the time, and had no intention of leaving NY and coming back here before I finished my course. I put my needs ahead of Bella's and lived my life however I wanted."

"And how is that working for you, Edward? You won't even practice, was there any point?"

"I thought it was what I wanted at the time."

"And now you work at the studio as a what, exactly? You got the job with no training, we could have saved the tens of thousands we paid for you to become a doctor."

"I know and I am sorry, Mom. I just don't feel ready to practice medicine."

"Will you ever, do you think?"

"I hope so. One day."

"Edward, you need to grow up."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You play at your career, you play house with your girlfriend, tell me you intend marrying Bree? I'm not saying you have to do it now, but do you intend ever marrying the girl or is this Angela all over again? Are you playing house again, Edward?"

"Fuck, I forgot Bree. She's going to be really pissed this time. I haven't thought of her for days."

"What's on your mind, Edward?"

"I know I saw Bella Swan, and I know something really sketchy happened to her and I know I have to find her. I'm going back to Meadowlea and staying until I see her again and when I do, I'm bringing her home, whether she remembers me or not. She must remember her own father. I'll take her to Charlie's."

"What about Bree, have you forgotten her again?"

I blushed, I really had.

"Yeah, I'll go break up with her before I leave. We were playing house. She wants more than I can give her."

"Edward, you have to stop doing this. Stop letting girls think you are offering them a future. I can't believe I'm saying this, but couldn't you just sleep around with random girls and stop breaking hearts? It's become a habit with you."

"I'm sorry, Mom. I do want a real relationship, I just can't find what I'm looking for."

"You had what you needed, Edward. You were one of the lucky ones who found their soul mate young and still you walked away. Think about that. Some people never find their One, you threw yours to the side and walked past her."

"I do know that," I snarked.

"Go find her, Edward and make sure she is happy. If she is, do the right thing and walk away again. You managed it last time."

X~x~X

"Oh my God, Edward, you are still alive!"

Bree ran into my arms and I looked over her head at my brother and Rose.

"You couldn't have called her?" Rose snarked.

"I'm sorry, I got caught up in something important and forgot."

"Of course you did, because you are Edward and only he exists in his world," Rose stated.

"I saw Bella," I replied, looking at Emmett. He grinned, I knew he would. While my brother loves Rose completely, in every way, he always loved my Bella as well. He thought she was just perfect, not for him, but for me, and he just lost the non- romantic part of his heart to her.

He alone reacted when I left her.

He beat me to a bloody pulp.

"Where is she? I hope she married some decent guy and has a dozen decent little kids," Emmett said.

"I don't know, Emmett, but I do intend finding out. I only saw her twice, and only for a minute each time. We haven't talked."

"You saw Belly Bean and didn't talk to her?" he frowned.

"She didn't recognise me," I admitted.

"Oh high five me, Rose, for Bella. She did the right thing and wiped my douche of a brother from her mind. Best thing she could do. I hope she's really happy. Really truly happy."

"Who is Bella?" Bree asked.

"Bella is the perfect girl for Edward. Sorry, but it's true. She was made just for him and they were madly in love for two years and guess what? Douche boy here left her. Went to college to screw around with skanks, well, one skank, then led a couple of nice girl's on, and I'm betting now he's seen Bella, he's about to ..."

"Emmett, could you and Rose please leave. Thanks for looking out for Bree but I'm home now. Just go."

"You going to explain everything to Bree? I'd like to stay and listen."

"Emmett, please. Don't the twins need to be collected from creche or something?"

Rose looked at her iPhone.

"He's right, come on, they add a late fee if I don't get them on time."

"Kiss the girls for me," I called as they left.

"Oh we will, I don't think anyone else will be welcoming your kisses for a while," Emmett called back.

Okay, start explaining," Bree said, walking away and sitting pointedly in the only single seater we own.

"I know I've mucked you about and I know you want more than I can offer you. I think you know it's time to move on."

"Oh, Bella wants you back so I get the heave-ho?" she asked.

"Bella doesn't know I exist and that may never change. Something happened to her. I don't know what but she didn't forget me voluntarily. I am pretty sure whatever happens, even if I find her and take her home to her Dad, that she will never want me again. I messed her up properly. I broke her spirit and I think someone took advantage of that and did something to her. I can't explain because I don't know what happened, but someone's hypnotised her or something and I don't even know if she knows who she is. I have to go and find her."

"So, it's bye bye Bree and don't let the door hit me on my way out? Seriously, Edward? You admit she doesn't want you but I have to go."

"Bree, I stayed away for the weekend to sort my head out and we are not going anywhere. This was always going to happen today. Even if I hadn't seen Bella, I intended letting you go."

"Letting me go? You didn't hire me, Edward."

"I'm sorry, I don't know what to say."

"Say what you said when you left Angela."

"Fine. It was nice while it lasted, stay in touch. Have a great life."

I held out my hand and Bree slapped it. Then she slapped my face.

I deserved it.

We both packed up our stuff silently, just asking if this cd was hers or mine, did she want the coffee machine, could I buy out her half of the piano? She didn't play but we paid for it together as our Christmas gift to one another. The deal was, she paid half and I had to play anytime she asked me to, whatever she wanted to hear me play.

It was chilly inside, I was relieved when we finally packed the two hire trucks and stood outside in the blustering snow.

"I'm sorry, I never went into this expecting it to end this way," I said. I hadn't, I always hoped she could be my Other One.

She was small and slim, with long brown hair and big brown eyes, she was as close to my One as I was ever going to get. But she wasn't Bella, and I couldn't pretend she was.

"I hope you find this Bella. I don't hope she marries you and you live happily ever after, but I hope you find her and she's okay," Bree said.

"Thanks, that's what I want too. I'm not even going to try and get back with her. I don't deserve her. Jacob Black has waited all these years for his turn, I think maybe if she comes home, she will finally let him. He always put her first. He deserves her."

"Well good, I'm glad she will have someone. But here's an idea Edward, how about you let Bella choose her own future for once. Goodbye Edward."

"I really hope you find him, Bree. The man who deserves you."

"So do I, Edward."

I had no idea where I was going to take my stuff, the lease on this apartment was up in a week and I didn't want to stay here any more.

My phone buzzed and Esme came to my rescue as usual.

"Edward, bring your things home. You can use the new guest cottage in the lower garden. We just had it rebuilt. No girls, Edward. No girls are allowed to move in. Just you. You need time to straighten your life out."

"Thanks, Mom."

"We still love you son, now work on finding Bella then you can be free to get your life back on track. Carlisle has an opening at the hospital starting in four months time. Think about filling it."

"I will, Mom. And thanks."


	6. Chapter 6

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 6

BPOV

Although I could hear Vicky talking, her words were flowing over me unheard. The image in the mirror captivated me, and took all my attention. I haven't seen myself for many years now so I was surprised to be unchanged, except for the hair. White blond, a little harsh I think, but definitely different. The hunters will not look at me and immediately think of Bella Swan, that's for sure.

Just seeing myself again assured me I did still exist because that has been a question I've struggled with. Was I still me? Was I dead and in some other world?

I have flashes of another life now and then but they don't mean much.

People, blurry faces, beaches, water, laughter.

Maybe they are just the bits you retain after a dream, but I never remember my dreams, if I am still dreaming.

Maybe in this life one does not dream?

Vicky cut my long hair off at chin level then bleached it with a hair dye called Nordic Delights, and I panicked when it slowly turned bright orange but in time, it kept lightening to a barely lemon shade and now it's dry, it's true platinum blond.

She's quite clever with the scissors, she's thinned the bits around my face so it sits in a pixie cut and looks quite cute, a feeling I can't even remember ever experiencing before.

I finally tore myself away from my reflection and Vicky smiled and took the mirror away, upstairs, which left me feeling a little sad. However, a wonderful surprise awaited me.

James loves it and tells me I look like a teenager again, which for some reason has put him in a really happy mood.

He handed me two new books!

I was immediately taken back to Christmas morning as a child, when Santa had been, the feeling was the same.

Two books, and one is an old favorite I haven't had here beside me before.

Pride and Prejudice.

I have Mr Darcy back!

Much as I want to curl up on my bed and read, he's sending me to the village to see how people react.

The first few times I visited the village, it was holding James and Vicky's hands, me sandwiched between them, and they taught me how to never catch anyone's eye, never have eye contact at all. Just pretend the others out there don't exist.

Never speak to them, never even apologise if you walk into them, just keep your eyes down and move on.

If necessary, and only if necessary, run.

You don't want to attract attention because the white cars are everywhere. The Government took all white vehicles off the road and issued them to the bounty hunters , so everyone can recognise them instantly, and those men are here to keep us all safe, but if you venture outside alone, without permission, their job is to catch and kill.

The rules have changed.

After a year, I was sent out alone but shadowed by James, and he ordered me to speak when needed. Only to shop assistants, only if they spoke to me or I needed to ask for something. You have to ask for cigarettes, they don't leave them where you can help yourself, so I had to learn how to speak to these strangers.

I think I used to be polite in that other shadowy life so I always add please and thank you and that makes James laugh.

Whatever makes him happy is a good thing, he can be horrid when he is angry and I know he hits Vicky sometimes. Usually I just get sent to my room.

Nowadays I'm allowed out alone, and I make sure to never break a single rule because my Mom would pay and that would be terrible.

I feel bad all the time because I knew Jane was going to run. I begged her not to, I explained over and over there was no point, she would die and Connie would too, but she snorted and said there was no 'friggin' way her Mom was in that other basement because if she was, she would have screamed the place down long ago.

Jane had been kept in The Box so I had never seen her at all but she and I spoke when Vicky was upstairs in James' bedroom, making him happy.

I knew I wasn't really meant to speak to her but as soon as she realised I was out here, she kept begging me to talk and I remember the years I never heard a single human voice, and it was worse than death, so I spoke to her but only when Vicky wasn't there. We had a code, I would tap twice when I was alone so we could talk and if I tapped again, it meant the trapdoor was opening so be quiet.

She still ranted and raged at times, especially when James threw her food inside. It's hard to find your food with absolutely no light so you crawl about feeling with your hands until you find it, and it's really important to you in The Box, it's the only highlight of your day.

Then when James' talks, it's like hearing an angels voice.

He taught me so much, the times he sat there with the door shut between us, as he explained how things had changed since the Third World War.

It was a terrible time and many cities are gone now. Only the few lucky people were saved and I don't even know why I was lucky enough to be a survivor. I only lived through it because James saved me and brought me here before the foreigners invaded. He had already saved Vicky. He saved my Mom but he couldn't save Charlie.

The Government would intervene if he saved males.

Vicky is James' favorite.

I'm not jealous, not exactly, in some ways I wish he liked me the best because she gets to stay upstairs even at night, but on the other hand, she has to do stuff with him to earn her place in his bed.

She tells me the stuff they do and I vaguely picture it in my mind but I don't think I could handle doing those things with him. It just seems strange, allowing someone to touch you. Nobody ever touches me.

"Come on, we are going shopping. Remember the rules," Vicky says, pulling me to the stairs.

"What are we buying," I ask her and she frowns.

"Clothes. For you. James thinks you need new clothes to go with your new hair. He thinks people will notice if you keep wearing the old stuff, it's getting pretty worn out I guess but don't take advantage. He's only doing this to keep you safe, he doesn't like you best. I'm his favorite, you remember that, Bella. Keep your hands off him."

"I would never touch James. It's forbidden," I cry.

"Yeah, well some people break the rules, and the way he's looking at you now...I don't like it. It's like you're something to eat."

I shuddered and James walked over and smiled at me.

"Vicky, play nice. Let Bella choose some of the outfits, and nothing too concealing, it will be Summer again one day and now she is allowed out alone, she needs nice things. Pretty things. If you buy her clothes I hate, then you don't get any new clothes for yourself next buying trip. Understand?"

He's standing close to Victoria, winding her long reddish hair around his hand. He likes her but he is not always nice to her.

Vicky sometimes tells me things but I know she is making them up. Maybe she is trying to trap me, and have James turn me outside without telling the Government. I don't think she really likes me being here.

James holds her face with his other hand and kisses her but not softly, not nicely. I touch my own lips, because once I knew what soft kisses were.

I remember that.

It's one of the few memories I have, but I can almost feel lips on mine, sucking my lower lip inside his mouth, teasing me with his tongue.

He has no face, no body, but I can feel his lips.

James lets her go and grabs the phone.

"This is James, security code 1927, reporting Victoria Rush and Bella Swan have permission to leave the house to go to the village to purchase clothing items. They do not require a guard to accompany them. They are both cleared to be outside alone."

He hangs up the phone and smiles.

"Be good, my little birds. They know you are leaving this house and they will be watching you every step of the way. I want you home by lunchtime, Victoria. Check your watch regularly. In fact, you can bring something nice home for lunch. Something ready made from a takeaway. Let Bella order it, she needs the practise."

He unlocks the deadbolt on the door and as always, my body shivers involuntarily.

It's silly because I know it's safe to go out after he reports in, but I still fear the hunters.

Not all people are as nice and trustworthy as James, and what if one of the hunters wanted to just kill us for fun?

They just killed Jane, maybe they liked that? Maybe they are twisted and horrid types who think putting girls to death is a sport?

All men are a danger to us so we try and find a female assistant whenever possible. Men are sure to call the hunters if they think you are doing anything wrong, so I never look at men.

Sometimes ladies smile at me and I know it's because they know I'm safe and won't be calling the Government about them.

Women can report one another, Vicky says, but she is sure they rarely would do that, unless we broke a rule.

I never break rules.

I avoid looking at Vicky even though she is talking to me because I did break one rule.

I told a man I had to get back home and I should not have done that but he touched my arm.

I really want to tell James about it but it may make him angry enough to turn me in.

It's right what he said, men have special powers now, the place the man touched me felt like a gentle slow burn and my arm tingled. He could have turned his power up and burned me there and then.

I was very lucky really, to escape with just that zap.

He must be a bounty hunter.

X~x~X

Alice's POV

To say Edward is obsessed with finding Bella is an understatement. I had to practically beg him to come home for Joshua's first birthday party. He hates missing weekends at Meadowlea because he 'saw' her there on a weekend.

Did he though?

I think he's changing and finally maturing and his bad deeds have come back to haunt him so he wants to make amends. The worst thing he ever did was leave Bella so coldly. I know, he was young, he was buzzed by his own sexual prowess with her, he started wanting more experiences because that's what eighteen year old guys are like. I guess it normally would be better that he left her than had he cheated on her away at college, but the way she then left so completely, I worry for her.

I'm almost sure whoever he saw in that village was not Bella. To start with, why would she be so close? Why would she ignore him and pretend not to know him? Had she slapped his face and ranted at him for ruining her life, sure, that would be Bella. She was never afraid to speak her mind.

I don't think she is the type to play games. She called Mike out regularly, and when he tried to cop a feel, she lashed out and nearly knocked his head off.

This doesn't sound like the Bella I knew, running away.

At worst, she would have acted all indifferent but she would have acknowledged it was Edward. There's always the possibility he was right and what they had was just a schoolyard crush gone feral, and maybe she grew up too and recognised they had both been way too over the top with one another.

I mean, he was her first everything.

It's hard to be sensible when you have just discovered sex, and you believe you are in love, you would do anything for that boy.

Maybe as time passed, she woke up and saw Edward was just a boy, like any other. A boy who showed her love and loving, and maybe she wanted to get away because she was embarrassed over how she overreacted when he left. Imagine everyone in Forks looking at you in pity and offering up the phone number of their nephew Clay from the country, or pointing out the 'other fish in the sea' every time you met.

It must have been excruciating for her.

I know Jessica's mother could never let Bella pass without a big scene, a big,"Oh how's life Bella? There are other boys, and you were never really his type. A boy like that? So good looking. He could have anyone. He could have a movie star even. He could BE a movie star with those looks. And no offence, but I mean, you really are just the girl next door. He had to move on. That's life, Bella. Men use you and abuse you and toss you away. Get used to it, sweetie."

She's told me that story a dozen times, like she had been doing Bella a favor! Righteous cow. She even had the hide to say to me that Edward should be the actor and Jazz the behinds the scene guy, they should swap jobs! I hate that woman.

I wonder if Joshua would like a day at the seaside? I think today is the perfect day. It's ridiculous to have sun at this time of year but there it is, shining it's little heart out.

I really think I should take advantage and go to Meadowlea and show Joshua some place other than Forks.

X~x~X

Well, I have to say, the shops are a letdown. I kind of remembered Meadowlea as having some of those cute little boutiques but all I've found are shops made for toursits. Buckets and spades, caps with the town's name embroidered on the front, loud shirts, do they really think this place rivals Hawaii? I found a gorgeous little shop that sells baby clothes so that was fun, made the trip worthwhile. Josh will look adorable and I must tell Rose, though not until she makes the public announcement. The girl is so terrified she is having twins again, she hasn't even told Emmett the rabbit died. She wants to have her first scan before laying it on him. I think it's funny because Emmett would go nuts with joy if it was more twins. I think he hoped the twins would be sextuplets.

Emmett will never be satisfied until he has his own little baseball team so I hope Rose likes being pregnant. She looks good, glowing as they say. No morning sickness for that girl!

God, I wish I was so lucky. I was so ill with Josh dad almost hospitalised me and I dread going through that again.

Oh, look, I could be wrong. The clothes in this shop window don't look half bad. Esme was looking for a sweater that shade of green, goes with her eyes. And they have men's sweaters in the same color. I could kill a couple of birds here and buy that green embroidered one for her for her birthday and one of those plain green ones for Edward for Christmas, and be ahead for once. I like the cable knit one too. Which would my brother choose?

Just as I grab for one off the shelf, a tall strawberry blond steps in front of me and grabs the same sweater in blue.

"Sorry, I just think these are awesome. My James has blue eyes and this shade of blue would really make them pop."

"My brother has green eyes," I tell her," and so does my Mom. Did you see the women's sweaters in the window? They are lovely, though maybe a little 'mature' for someone your age. I'm buying my Mom one, they are really beautiful. I wonder where they are made? They don't look like the usual mass produced stuff we usually get."

"I think they are handmade right here. There's a knitting group, and they sell their stuff here so even if they don't have the right size, you can order one."

"Well thanks, that's handy to know. This one would fit Edward and my Mom likes hers a little loose, so I think I have the perfect sizes right here. Oh, your friend looks a little lost. Doesn't she shop much?" I asked as I glanced at the over blonded girl looking vacantly at a display of blue jeans.

"She's, um, how do we say it now? She's challenged? Special?"

"Oh, oh, I see. Maybe you should help her," I suggested. She was just staring into space, turned slightly side on to me but she looked quite pretty despite the horrific home hair fiasco.

I used to have my hair in a pixie cut like that in High School, the cut is the only thing stopping her looking really silly.

Her eyebrows are so dark, they just look wrong with the white hair.

She turns and looks at me as I pay for my sweaters and I frown because...

No, it's not her.

God, I am getting as paranoid as my brother! Maybe there is a family in this town related to the Swans with a couple of young girls who resemble Bella. Edward said the girl he saw had very long brown hair and was the right age to be Bella. This girl is younger, paler, thinner. Too thin, really.

I hate how girls think Posh Spice is an acceptable weight because it leaves their faces so gaunt and old looking, but on this girl, it's had the opposite effect and made her look almost childish. But then, if she is mentally challenged maybe she just always would look like that. She's pretty, though, despite everything.

I smile, and thank God Josh was born healthy as I leave the shop.

I need coffee, I must find a teashop and fill up on caffeine before we go home. Josh is tired and getting grumpy and I think the sand will have to wait for another day.

Edward agrees to meet me at the best coffee place this village has so I get to catch up with Paranoid Boy and he gets to hold his nephew, who he adores, and he feeds my son ice cream.

"So, Edward, any luck?" I ask as I sip the ambrosia. Really, for a village this size to have coffee this good...amazing.

"Nope. I saw two brunettes and followed one because I thought maybe it was Bella, but nope.

When she turned around she was fifty at least. I think the red coat distracted me. Bella was wearing a red cape last time I saw her."

"That's the problem when you start looking for someone, you see so many lookalikes and possibles. I even saw one myself."

"Where?" he barks, frightening Josh.

I hand my son his pacifier and glare at Edward.  
>"It wasn't Bella. It was just a young girl who sort of resembled her but the hair was hideous and people who do home dyes should be shot. Her hair will be totally ruined, it was so over bleached. It will be breaking off everywhere and.."<p>

"Alice. Where was this girl?"

"In the sweater shop. The shop where the local ladies sell their crafts. I got Mom an amazing sweater.."

"Are you sure it could not have been Bella? She could have changed her hair."

"But not her age. She was too young. Now, Edward, Jasper wants you to come to dinner next week so could you possibly give up this search for one night? We are holding a dinner party, just family, in case Rose wants to grab the opportunity to make an announcement, if you get my drift?"

"She did look younger than she would be, but she was so thin. I want to go and look, Alice. Which shop was it? Point it out to me," he said, handing Josh over, standing.

"Edward, you are being very rude. That shop there, with the brown canopy. Oh, bye to you too. Thanks for the coffee, I'll pay, shall I?"

God, he is so obsessed.

By the time I get home, Josh is asleep in his carseat and I just can't wait to give my mother the sweater, I can always buy her something else for her birthday.

"Alice, how sweet, he looks so angelic asleep. Put him in the crib and come see my new garden, I decided to start even though the snow might return. I haven't planted anything, but I'm doing a rockery, maybe some cactus would be nice? Do you think they would survive here?"

"Just a moment. I bought you a gift, and I want to see how you like it."

I lay Josh down and pull the door almost shut and return to my car to grab the sweater.

"That's extraordinary. It looks hand made."

"It is. Like the color?"

"It's exactly what I was looking for, clever girl. You know what I'm thinking, I mean, I love that it's green and all and I will get a lot of wear out of it, but you know those blue pants I bought? A sweater like this would be perfect with them. Did it come in blue?"

"Yes, and the blue was amazing. This other customer was buying a man's sweater there in the blue, and I loved it. We should go back there together next week. I even think I might get Carlisle one, his eyes are blue. Oh God, dad would look amazing! And you and he would have matching tops. Wait, I'll go get the one I bought Edward. It's in that cable stitch."


	7. Chapter 7

**OK this is clearly a massive fail, I'll finish it here in a shortened version for my 6 reviewers, then write something else on the Aussie board and use that for my class unless they like this better than readers here.**

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 6

Edward's POV

The shop was empty and I frantically searched for an assistant.

"I'm looking for a girl, about five foot three, slender to thin, she was in here this morning."

"I'm sorry, Sir, we have only had a few customers today. There was a slim lady with a baby in a stroller. Would that be her?"

"No, that was my sister, but the girl was in here at the same time."

"Well, I did serve a lady with lots of long strawberry blond hair soon after your sister, she had a friend with her, very white hair but I don't think it was her natural color," she winked.

"That sounds like her. She was with someone?"

"Yes, a lovely lady, Vicky. She's been in before."

"Could you tell me where she lives?"

The woman paused.

"You know, I have no idea. Not in the village proper, that's for sure. She comes in with a tall handsome blond man. Always wears a greenish leather jacket and ties his hair back, you know, like a girl would. Pony tail. Can't stand them on men myself but it looks good on him because he's very ... masculine looking. Very well built."

"And you have no idea where he lives?"

"I might be wrong but I think he is one of the Laurent boys. They were orphaned and lived with their grandfather. One of them got _taken away by the social services years ago,_" she added in a whisper. "This one is the older boy, he's had a bit of trouble," she finished, raising an eyebrow.

"And where does Mr Laurent live?"

"The grandfather had a cottage in Honeysuckle Lane but it's fallen apart from neglect over the years. Council might have claimed it in lieu of rates by now. He built a little place out in the forest but I couldn't tell you where, sorry. I never go in that forest myself, too many undesirables living out there. You be careful if you go looking."

That fit with my last sighting, so I decided to go chat to Siobhan again and see if she knew anything of the inhabitants there.

She was cleaning my room as luck would have it so I helped her with that and, knowing she only had me staying at present, I offered her a coffee in that coffee shop Alice loved.

While she had many tales of people rumoured to live in the forest, she knew little about the Laurent grandson except he had done time and was known to be light fingered. Every burglary was assumed to be his work, though she rather thought all that had stopped a few years ago. Certainly nobody had reported any robberies of late. Maybe he had moved on to greener pastures and was plying his trade in another small town where nobody knew him, she suggested.

She finished her snack and headed home. I had to explore the forest yet again.

Walking through the trees I was surprised to see how close it was this way to Forks. As the crow flies, the villages were side by side, but the roads between were long and meandering, and gave the impression there were many more miles keeping Meadowlea and Forks apart.

Within fifteen minutes I was standing in the clearing where Charlie had shown me Bella used to come to, years earlier, when I first left.

It was not a stretch to imagine an inhabitant of the forest had taken her to his house, most were within a shortish walk.

How did he convince her to go with him? Had he knocked her out and carried her? Charlie said she was in such a terrible state it wasn't impossible someone had merely befriended her and talked her into going with him. He had hated her coming here alone but he had to work sometime and he had nobody else to call on for help. Renee had arrived much too late, after it was all over, and only stayed long enough to voice her opinion that Bella had simply chosen to leave Forks and start anew.

While that sounded like a plan that may have appealed to her, the stumbling block always was, Bella had no money. None on her person, and that small savings account where she had saved her earnings from working after school at Newton's for college was still untouched to this day. Charlie had saved the bulk of the fees himself but Bella had no way to access those either and they too, still sat in the bank awaiting her return.

I started on the houses closest to this end and worked my way back. Few people answered and those who did refused to answer my queries. If the Laurent's were here, nobody was telling me.

X~x~X

Alice's POV

I kept thinking about that girl with the redhead, and wondering if there was any chance it had been Bella. Eight years had gone by since I last saw her and her body used to be shapely, and this girl was so thin you could never call her that. And surely she had been too young? Could Bella still look like a young teenager?

I critically assessed myself in the mirror.

Maybe, in the right clothes, in a dim room, maybe I could be mistaken for five years younger than my true age but no more than that.

It couldn't have been her and searching was pointless.

Still, Edward needed to get this done and go on with his life.

Jasper was sure Edward would soon be dismissed at work, with his frequent absences, though he did turn up about three days a week now. He had searched every inch of the adjoining village to no avail and was getting increasingly frustrated and I for one was glad to not be there witnessing his interactions with Jason Jenks.

The man was copping all Edward's wrath and disappointment.

I sighed, how could my life be so simple and ordinary and pleasant and my favorite brother's be so filled with drama? Maybe some people were like magnets and attracted that sort of thing.

Well, Mom would be ready by now and Josh had finished lunch and we finally had another beautiful day with sun even, so it seemed like the perfect day to take a little trip. Mom was hoping to buy several sweaters as gifts for her sisters, and I had even started to think I may get myself one and put it away for a few years, until I wore clothes like that.

It was not often you found handmade items made that skilfully.

Josh grinned happily when I strapped him in the car, he loves going out of the house these days and now he can walk, it will be more fun at the beach.

Esme was ready and waiting, and wearing her green sweater despite the warmth of the day, so off we set.

For a while I thought I wouldn't be able to drag her from the shop or fit everything she bought into my trunk. There were children's sweaters as well, which I hadn't noticed first trip so soon she had a pile for the twins and Josh and then we found the baby clothes, all knitted so perfectly even I bought a stash in case I ever get the urge to give Josh a sister or brother.

"Alice, I really want that yellow set, Rose would love it, especially if she has another girl. Come on, you may never have more babies," she grumbled, but I saw it first and I grabbed it first, it was mine.

"Rose prefers her babies to be readily identifiable as whatever gender they are, buy the pink and blue sets and give her the appropriate one," I suggested.

Mother was a little cranky still over that so once I had her and Josh settled on a picnic blanket on the beach and my son was toddling into the very edge of the sea, I decided to try and make amends.

I wasn't handing over that yellow outfit, it was divine, but so was the coffee in that little cafe.

And she would love something from the bakery.

"Mom, I'll be right back, just need to walk back into the shops for a moment," I called and she waved and her attention instantly returned to Josh.

Two takeaway coffee's and two hideously calorie laden sticky buns later, I was done and I walked back alone the road, looking in at the guest house Edward mainly lived in now.

A flash of white blond hair caught my eye and I looked closer.

It was that white haired girl, out alone.

Was that really a good idea? Her friend had said she had special needs but she didn't seem that high functioning in the shop that day. I wondered if they knew she was out alone?

It couldn't hurt to ask.

"Hey, hello, excuse me," I called and she turned to stare then bolted like a rabbit.

Shit, now I'd scared her and where would she run?

She took off across the road and the single car traveling along it almost hit her. This was not good.

I set the coffee cups and paper bag down on the top of a fence and took off after her in earnest. She didn't look back, just bolted far more quickly than one would think she could manage, and disappeared into the forest.

Damn and blast.

Something about the way she had run reminded me strongly of Bella. The girl had never been athletic or even sure on her feet and she managed to look quite awkward when she had to participate in any running events at school, and this girl ran in the same manner.

Could Edward be right?

I saw a break between two trees and the foliage was bent there so I tried that small pathway.

Yes.

There she was, looking about nervously, opening a green door to a modest little cottage. The door shut and I ran towards it.

Raising my hand to knock, I wondered nervously why she had chosen to live out here in the forest? It was kind of dark and shadowy and creepy, truth be told. Not a place I'd choose to live.

The door opened at my knock and a man stood before me.

Hmm, maybe this was why she lived here. Not bad at all.

"Hi, I was just wondering if the girl..." I paused as that girl in question turned around from where she was hastily opening a closet.

"Bella? Bella, my God, it is you."

"And you would be?" asked the blond haired man pleasantly.

"Oh, I'm Edward's sister Alice. I'm sure Bella has spoken about Edward to you," I replied, accepting his handshake.

"Of course she has, I almost feel like I know him already. I'm James, Bella's friend. Bella, why don't we take Alice here downstairs and show her your bedroom?"

"No, really, it's fine. I just wanted to speak to Bella and make sure she was okay. We haven't heard from her in years. You know how it is. High school friends, drifting apart, all that."

"And are you married, Alice?" he asked, looking out the door behind me.

"Oh, Jasper's at work. Bella, we have a little son, Josh, you have to come meet him and talk to Esme. She is at the beach here, near the shops, with Joshua. She visits Charlie every week still and.."

Suddenly the whole atmosphere changed.

"Charlie is alive?" Bella gasped, looking at the man.

He turned and grasped my arm tightly, slamming his door shut.

"You probably shouldn't have said that. Now I can't let you leave. I must insist you accompany us downstairs. Bella, fetch the keys to The Box for me please. They are beside my bed, on a hook."

Bella stood there, frozen, like a deer in the headlights.

"Bella, I said fetch my keys, now. I do have another Box in the other basement, I'm sure you don't want to be put inside it now?"

Bella stepped shakily away and disappeared, reappearing with a set of keys.

"Let me go, I have family right down the road here. You are not keeping me here," I declared loudly.

"Shut up and get downstairs, or I will just kill you now," he snarled in answer.

Bella snapped to and turned to face me.

"Do what he says Alice. He'll report you to the bounty hunters. He will. He reported Jane."

"Jane? Jane Volturi?" I said without thinking. There was only one Jane in this little area that I knew of. Jane Volturi had disappeared about three years earlier and like Bella, there had been nothing since. No sightings, no letters, no money taken from her account. She still got regular space in our newspaper, although they rarely mentioned Bella nowadays. But their two names had been linked and pondered over often enough for it to come immediately into my mind.

Fuck me, I have a feeling I am in big trouble.

X~x~X

Bella's POV

Alice. I know Alice.

I mean, I'm not absolutely sure how or why I know Alice but in my head is a montage of photos. Alice jumping around, clapping when Edward surprised me with a birthday party. Alice sneaking kisses with Jasper Whitlock near the lockers at high school. Alice helping me whenever I needed a dress to wear to some dance or other event.

This was Alice.

"Cullen," I said out loud without thinking as the name appeared in my head.

James unlocked the door to The Box and shoved Alice inside.

"No, James, she said she has a baby. You can't save her and not the baby," I pleaded.

"Shut up now, Bella and go to your bedroom. Stay there until I say to come out or I will just call the hunters and have you both taken."

I hurried to my room and sat on my bed.

James can't call the hunters, that must not happen.

I lay on my bed and thought about Alice and Edward.

Now I remember Edward.

Green eyes, copperhair, soft lips. gentle hands, kisses...oh my God. I slept with Edward. I can see him in my bed, above me, touching me...everywhere. Kissing me, promising he loved me.

But he left.

He went away and I...

James said he was his cousin yet Alice hadn't known him, how could that be?

And she said Esme still visited my Dad? He was alive? I had grieved for Charlie for years and all the time he was alive? Why would James say something that cruel to me?

I had to talk to Alice. No matter what James said, I had to.

X~x~X

Edward's POV

Shooting was going well, Jasper sure knew his craft and this series would no doubt be as popular as the first. He'd been unsure, the man doubts his own charisma and star quality but the female viewers love him and eat up anything he is in. So, the storyline is nothing new, he's the usual undercover man, hiding from both the police and the underworld, but when viewers love that stuff, what else can you serve them?

I feel guilty all round these days. Guilty for not coming to work every day like they hired me to do, guilty for neglecting my family and friends on weekends, guilty for not finding Bella and easing her father's pain.

I know it was her, I just know. Whether she was the blond with the redhead, I can't speculate without seeing her for myself, but I know the girl in the red cloak both times was Bella.

God, why hadn't I grabbed her tighter and kept her with me that time outside the store? It had been the look of wild terror in her eyes that made me let go.

Then I let her escape.

Regrets, let's just say I have a truck full.

Just concentrating on our time together has reawakened every feeling I had for her back then, and I know I'm searching for her for Charlie but if I'm honest, I don't think I will ever rest easy again unless I find her for myself. Like Bree said, I have to let Bella choose her own future this time and if she chooses me, then I will be a very happy man and an incredibly lucky one to boot.

I wonder if she has any residual feelings left now or if she has moved on. Common sense says she would have, long before this, but what if?

What if she isn't currently in a relationship?

What if she does still like me?

What if she gives me another chance?

No, I don't deserve it but that doesn't stop me wanting it.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

"Mom?"

"Edward. I need you to come to the beach across from your lodgings. Something's happened to Alice."

"Shit Mom, what? Is she okay?"

"We came to the beach and she went back to the shop for coffee and she's gone. I can't find her anywhere and the shops are closing. I asked in every shop. She bought two takeaway coffees and two iced buns at the bakery, and they are sitting on a fence near your place.

I'm worried, Edward. She was right here and now she's gone. The car's here where she unpacked us onto the beach, all she took was her little pocketbook. And her cell phone, that's not here either but she isn't answering. I've left a dozen messages. Please come and bring jasper. Josh is getting upset, he wants his Mommy."

"Stay right there. No, go across to the guesthouse and introduce yourself to Siobhan. She has fold up cribs, ask her to put one in my room and get Josh down to sleep. Jasper and I will be right there."

"Hurry Edward. It's getting cold and dark. There's no way she would leave her baby son and I here like this."

"There may be a simple explanation, Mom. Don't panic yet."

I ended the call and went to find Jasper, in the trailer, wiping off his make up, laughing and joking with the girls. He froze mid sentence when he saw my face.

"What the fuck's happened?" he asked frantically.

"Jazz, don't panic but Alice brought Josh and Esme to the beach here at Meadowbank and she's missing. We need to get to the guesthouse, now. I think we need to call the cops. And Charlie."


	8. Chapter 8

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 8

Edward's POV

Last night had been one of the very worst nights of my life. The police had questioned us all at length and Charlie had ended up breaking down, unable to handle another disappearance.

There has been another girl, Jane Volturi, disappear from this area three years ago and it's such a small place, three unexplained disappearances are ridiculous.

Jane was hiking in the forest with her boyfriend and they got into an argument and she flounced off ahead of her partner and must have gotten lost.

The police had been called in and the whole area scoured and every single householder in both villages and the forest were found and questioned, some at length.

I flicked through the lists and stopped at one name.

James Laurent.

Whether it was James Laurent Snr, grandfather or the young James, he had been questioned and his house searched as a matter of course. Nothing suspicious had been found. The cottage was two bedroom, with a tiny attic space not roomy enough to hide a person, the police officer searching it had been unable to get inside it but he had been sure there was no way anything larger than a cat could have been up there.

Jane had no reason to disappear. The argument had been tiny, almost irrelevant. She and her boyfriend were getting married and she had paid out a lot of money in deposits for various things, the venue and caterer and florist included. She had her dress, her shoes, her hair stylist was booked to go to the house and attend to her and the four bridesmaids hair on the wedding day.

They had argued about what date they would be returning from the honeymoon that they had been paying off for over two years. She had some work function to attend, he felt it was more important to stay the maximum time possible in Hawaii and that she could miss one lame get together with her workmates. It wasn't a big deal and would have been sorted with a single calm conversation.

Marcus, the fiance, had been investigated and nothing had ever turned up, no hidden vices, no gambling debts, no secret mistress, the couple lived together already and had done so for nearly five years. The wedding was to be the highlight of Jane's life.

There was no chance she had walked away from that voluntarily.

Marcus had waited and fully expected her to come back and apologise and the ceremony would happen. It wasn't until that day came and went that he really believed he had lost her forever.

She was a loud type of person, something of a drama queen; going to stay with a friend for a day or two to teach him a lesson was possible.

Missing the wedding they had slaved to pay for was not.

She had two poodles that were like children to her, had she done a runner against all odds, she would have take her dogs.

Her mother, Connie, was deeply concerned from the start because the dogs needed to have their yearly vet check that week and Jane had made a booking, and she would never miss something that vital to her dogs health.

"She loved those dogs," the woman had cried over and over.

Alice had Jasper and Joshua and there was not a snowflakes chance in Hell she had run anywhere for any reason. She had been taken.

When we checked at her house a pot roast and vegetables were cooking in the crockpot, ready for dinner when they all got home.

Nothing was missing, nothing.

Every item of clothing was accounted for.

No money was missing and her last purchases had probably wiped out the two hundred dollars she withdrew the day before to take to the sweater shop. Carlisle had tallied her receipts, and she had spent a total of $186 in the course of the day.

The most vital clue was that she would never leave Josh.

Women leave their husbands and sometimes maybe nobody understands why, but we all know Alice; if Jasper had done something unforgivable she would have taken Josh.

Esme was beside herself with worry so Carlisle took her home and sedated her, promising to wake her the minute we knew anything.

Jasper had gone home in case Alice did as well, and I spent the night cradling my nephew in my arms, promising him the same thing I had promised Charlie.

I would find her.

I would find Alice and I would find Bella.

The coincidence was too strong to be believable.

My theory was, she saw those women again, the redhead and the blond, and went with them. Those would be the only strangers she would go with and only, only, if the girl was Bella so now it seemed likely Bella was here and was alive and was with my sister. Anything else was too far fetched.

Charlie had gone with his best men and searched the houses in the forest again.

James Laurent's house was clean, in the respect there were no clues any girls apart from his live in lover had ever been there. The house was a little messy and their closets had been untidy with clothing stacked on the floor inside, waiting to be laundered, but that was hardly an offence.

The officer knew he was my main concern so he had searched the place top to bottom. It was a single level house, no place to hide two or three fully grown women, small as they all may be.

Looking at Jane's photo, that was the only thing the three missing women had in common. They were all small, slightly built girls. All could pass for being younger than their ages.

Whoever took them liked young women too small to fight them back.

I finally lay Josh back in the crib and slept a little myself, dreaming that dream again, the one where Bella was in the forest then I heard Alice's voice. It was so clear I awoke, fully expecting to see her standing before my bed.

Charlie was around at dawn with a pile of fliers to post on every shop window and pole and fence and anywhere else they fit. All three girls were shown, and the possibility the same someone had taken them written in the blurb.

A bold MISSING topped the page and I pushed Josh in his stroller as we went up the opposite side of the main street to Charlie, madly covering surfaces at head height. Someone must have seen something. How can three women be taken and not a single witness?

Esme was back and she took over Josh so Jasper and I could help comb the forest yet again. A few of the residents watched us and we watched them. If anyone had my sister, I wasn't about to give them room to take her anywhere else. The area had been patrolled all night, supposedly for those resident's protection, in reality, so they could be watched.

Someone had those girls and at noon the next day, a body was dredged from some swampy pool further inside the deeper section of the forest.

I admit I had trouble keeping hope for either my sister or Bella when I heard about the find, but it proved to be Jane who had been killed and weighed down in the watery grave.

Naturally everyone came to the same conclusion. If he had killed Jane, then chances were he had already killed Bella years earlier, and he would kill Alice too, if he hadn't yet.

My assurances that I had seen Bella myself were treated with caution.

I was the hysterical ex-boyfriend, and couldn't be relied to be talking sense.

X~x~X

Bella's POV

James left us locked up the next day, only opening the hatch long enough to bring down a tray of food. A box of cereal, a loaf of bread, bottles of water, fruit, tins of tasteless ready meals, it seemed it may be some time before his next food drop.

He opened The Box and pushed a second tray of stuff inside for Alice and warned her to go easy because it may be days before he got back. He didn't say where he was going, he pushed me aside and went upstairs and I heard the lock of the trapdoor click into place.

Alice called out and I moved to sit at the door.

"Bella, who is he? How did you end up here?"

"He's James and he saved me before the war," I explained.

"What war? What are you talking about?"

"The Third World War. He kept me in The Box for my own good. Lots of women died in that war, Alice, you must know that."

"There has not been a Third World War, Bella. He's lied to you."

I considered her words.

"James would not lie."

"He lied about Charlie. Your Dad is alive Bella, I saw him myself last week. He took me into your bedroom and showed me the photos on your walls. Remember those photos? Remember the ones from your surprise party?"

"I broke the plates," I said, suddenly remembering the sound of glass breaking when I stumbled and held my hands out to the table to steady myself and instead, swiped off a stack of small glass plates. They had all crashed to the floor and broken.

"My Mom's best cake plates," Alice agreed, happily.

"Well, I don't know why he lied but there must be a reason. He always saves me from the bounty hunters."

"What would a bounty hunter want with you?" she asked.

"You know the rules. If you leave the house without your master telling them first, they catch and kill you."

"Bella, that's nonsense. Bounty hunters go after felons who break their bail bonds and don't come back. They don't kill them. They return them to the police for a reward. If they killed them they wouldn't get any money and they would be in very big trouble."

"I mean the new bounty hunters the Government hires," I explained. It was strange she knew nothing about them.

"James has told you a lot of things that are untrue. You have to listen to me. When did you dye your hair?"

"Why?" I asked.

"Do you remember seeing Edward? He saw you in the street in the evening a while ago, you bumped into him? He called after you."

I shook my head.

"Then you were in a small grocery store and bought a packet of cigarettes and he grabbed your arm and spoke to you."

"That was Edward? He's a bounty hunter?" I said in surprise.

"No, he's not a bounty hunter, he's a doctor but he works with Jasper at the studio at the moment, it's a long story."

"But that man stung me on the arm," I explained.

"Bella, think back. Remember how you felt whenever Edward touched you? The buzz you two talked about?"

I frowned and lay down on the floor. If I shut my eyes, I could see flashes of myself at High School, with Edward and sometimes I didn't see him coming and his touch jolted me and I pulled away for a second before realising it was him and just the connection we shared.

"That was Edward?" I repeated, trying desperately to see that man in the street again in my head. I hadn't looked at his face, of course.

But Alice was right.

I had felt that sensation before. That was Edward.

"He's living here in the village, looking for you. I saw you in the shop where that tall girl bought the blue sweater for James that day."

I was with Victoria when she bought that sweater and there had been another customer, with a stroller.

"You had your baby with you," I replied.

Patches were appearing in the clouds of my mind. Memories started to pour inside.

"Why is Edward looking for me? He didn't want me, he went away."

"We've all been looking for you, Bella. You disappeared. Charlie drives through this village every week at least. Haven't you ever seen him?"

"I'm not allowed to look at faces," I told her.

"Oh okay. Now tell me what happened to Jane."

"She tried to escape and James had to report her to the Government and the bounty hunters took her to kill her. And her Mom. They killed Connie too."

"Connie isn't dead, Bella. She was at a news conference only last month, reminding people about her missing daughter. And the Government do not kill people. If Jane is dead, then James killed her."

"No, he wouldn't kill her. He saved her."

"There was nothing to save her from."

"No war?'

"No."

That changed things.

If James wasn't saving us, then he was what, kidnapping us?

"Has James ever forced you to do anything with him? Has he raped you?"

"No, he sleeps with Vicky and she threatens me to keep away and not to touch him but I never would anyway."

"That's kind of strange. He must have just wanted you to be his puppet then. Is Vicky his girlfriend or did he say he saved her too?"

"She told me he saved her first and that's why she is the best."

"So, would she help us escape or do we need to keep secrets from her?"

I had never thought about it. Even if James took her, kidnapped her, she seemed to really love him, and I kind of thought she might stay on his side.

"I don't know if we can trust her, she loves James and I don't think she likes me. She tells me lies."

"Sounds like both of them tell you lies, Bella. We need to get the key to this room. You got it before, for James so you know where it is."

"But it's upstairs and he has locked the trapdoor. I can't go upstairs."

"We need to work out a plan, and we need to be really careful, Bella. He's probably going to be questioned by the police one day soon. Jasper and Edward will never stop looking for us and every man in the area will be questioned by the police I think. Go to bed, we need to sleep and be ready when we get a chance to get upstairs and that may not be for days by the sound of it. I need water, there's no bottles on this tray."

"You have to crawl to the bathtub and use the faucet, it flicks open," I explained.

"Oh, that's easier said than done in this pitch blackness. Okay, you go to bed and we will talk in the morning."

"I'm sorry James got you but I'm glad you are here, Alice, if you know what I mean."

"I understand, Bella. Go dream of Edward and remember the good times."

That's just what I did.

X~x~X

Edward's POV

Three days and nothing, not a single sighting.

Everyone in town had been questioned.

Many had seen James and his girlfriend with a smaller girl, and they had noticed the change in her hair recently, so it seemed they had Bella but where they were holding her was a mystery.

Charlie didn't want to question them about it, in case he panicked and killed her, and presumably he had Alice as well so we needed to let him think he was not under suspicion.

Jasper had appeared on the TV making appeals for anyone knowing anything about Alice to come forward and Charlie had appeared with him as well. I was nobody to Bella now so I wasn't an appropriate person to plea for their return but I preferred that because I liked being anonymous to James, if he was watching the police segments on the news.

As the whole week passed with nothing, I started to think about a new approach, not necessarily involving the police.

The forest was still patrolled but less openly now, and residents were going about their lives, ignoring the police presence.

Crime was non existent in the village and surrounding area. Everyone was on their best behavior.

After Jasper left to go home to Esme and Josh on the Friday, I walked along the street gazing unseeingly into the closed shops and came upon a small bar, all this town could support.

I was tired, frustrated, and thirsty.

One beer wouldn't hurt.

I sat on a bar stool and ordered a pint and in no time, a pretty woman sat down beside me. She had long strawberry blond hair and a pretty amazing figure.

"Hi, buy a girl a drink," she asked me and I stopped the automatic negative response from forming on my lips.

That hair, it was amazing but also I would imagine, somewhat unique.

There was a chance she was the girlfriend.

"Sure, what would you like?" I replied.

"Um, I usually don't drink alcohol, not allowed, but maybe a small glass of Bacardi and Coke wouldn't hurt," she answered.

I pushed the drink closer to her and she reached out a hand and I froze.

Bella's charm bracelet adorned her left wrist.

I would know it anywhere, every single charm had meaning to us in our short lived romance.

The tiny piano, the Eiffel Tower where we planned to honeymoon back when we were first besotted and thought it would last forever.

The tiny picture perfect cottage, our first home to be, the little truck to remind her of her first form of transport as a student, the tiny shiny Volvo, my first car.

All that and the others could be coincidence, sure, but not the little custom made LucyLu dog charm.

I refuse to believe anyone else had one like that made.

She wasn't an attractive dog, why would charms like that be mass produced?

"So, this is a nice place," I said,waving my glass around.

"Yeah, if you like dumps," she said grumpily.

"You from around here?" I asked.

"Unfortunately it appears we are stuck here because it's ideal."

"Ideal for what?"

"Avoiding stickybeaks," she replied.

"Oh sorry, Just passing the time," I replied.

"I hate this Goddam town. It's not even a town, not big enough."

"Where would you prefer to live?" I asked her, moving slightly closer.

"Paris," she laughed and fingered the charm.

"Paris is nice," I replied.

"You've been to Paris?" she asked, getting more animated.

"Sure, hasn't everyone?"

"Not me. I've been stuck here for ten years."

"You could move. You could take off and spread your wings and go to Paris or anywhere else," I suggested.

"I have a feeling Paris is not on James' list of places to visit," she replied tiredly.

"Go alone, or better still, come with me."

She snorted and held up a hand and the barman refilled her order again.

"Keep them coming," I said to him with a wink.

"So, do I get to know your name?" I asked.

"Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine," she replied.

"Anthony Masen," I said, I don't know why. I just had a feeling if she lived with the man who took Bella and Alice, my real name may ring an alarm bell and I wanted this girl to hang about and drink a lot of relaxing drinks with me.

"Um, Tory," she answered.

"So, Tory, you married?" I asked.

"Nah, don't believe in all that. A piece of paper and all that stuff."

"Yeah, I agree," I said, deciding to agree with her views completely.

I clicked my fingers and got the barmans attention.

"Another round," I said, handing him a fifty. "Keep that, I think we'll need more."

"I really shouldn't," she said, and I took her arm and led her down to the few booths in the back section, sliding in beside her.

If James came looking for her, I wanted warning.

It was dimly lit down here and I kept my body in contact with hers and felt her wriggle in the seat.

Good, she was not unaffected by my presence.

"You are really beautiful, I'm amazed a girl as attractive as you are would choose to live here. You should live in California, try your luck in Hollywood."

She laughed and snuggled closer and I put an arm around her.

"I don't think I'd make it in films," she said.

"You never know. I actually know people in show business," I told her, and she smiled and touched my arm. She was so cold I almost shivered. She felt like a reptile.

"So, who do you know? Johnny Depp?" she said, assuming no doubt I was lying to her.

I laughed.

"No, nobody A list. But I work at a studio in Seattle. You have to start somewhere. I could have a word. You'd be great as the love interest in a local drama."

"Really," she said, relaxing against me.

I waved the waitress down and ordered two drinks for each of us. I was drinking light beer, and I had drunk a lot of beer in my time at college and could easily stay sober while she slipped into a state of fuzzy happiness.

Let down her guard.

"If they like you, it could lead to bigger and better things. I mean, even Johnny Depp started in a small local studio," I guessed.

"Really? Did he?"

"Sure, he wasn't born famous. He was once ordinary, unknown. And he had to work his way up. And you, Tory are a lot prettier than he is, if I may say so," I said, smiling my special panty dropper smile that had never failed me.

"You are sweet. You should be in pictures yourself, you're really handsome," she said and I pulled her in closer.

"Maybe we could be in a movie together."

I toasted to us and she drank another drink down.

"Hey, Lisa, more drinks, come on," she said loudly and I pulled out another fifty and lay it on the table.

"You sure know how to show a girl a good time," she said, her eyes starting to glaze.

"So, can we go back to your place?" I asked.

She stopped and looked up at me.

"No, that wouldn't work, there's a full house there already."

"Guests?" I said, "I can't stand guests myself."

"Yeah, guests, two very unwelcome guests," she confirmed.

"I bet they are both big handsome men," I teased.

"I wish. Two whiny women," she replied.

"Oh, that's a drag for you. I bet you are the best looking though."

She smiled at that, and I slid another glass over to her.

"Bella's not bad but I think I fucked up her hair," she laughed and I forced myself not to react.

"Don't mess with your hair, it's beautiful. What did you do to this Bella's hair?" I asked.

"I blonded it but James wanted it extra white so I did it twice and it's fucked, all fucked up," she laughed.

"Bad luck for Bella. How long is she staying?"

"Oh she's been with us for fucking years, like eight fucking years."

"That's a long time to have a guest," I agreed.

"Stupid bitch. She thinks James likes her but he only fucks me," she told me and I wanted to jump on the table and dance with joy. I had assumed a man would only take a girl for one reason and if I was wrong, that was very good. Very very good.

"I bet she's not half the woman you are," I soothed.

"Naw, she isn't and the new one? Skinny as a rail too. I mean, men like curves right?"

"For sure, I like your curves, Tory."

She grinned and tried to find her mouth with her glass.

"Oops, it moved."

I laughed with her.

"So, do you think this Bella and her friend would want to meet my best buds sometime? We could all go out on a date together," I suggested.

"No, the newbie can't leave the basement, not for years yet. Bella might want to come, but James is keeping her locked inside. The fucking cops are about. All about. Everywhere you look."

Fuck they have a basement.

"Maybe when they go, do you think we could go on that date? With you and Bella and me and the studio boss?"

"Oh sure Antony..Anthony..I like you."

"I like you, too, very much. Can I walk you home? We can make plans on the way."

"Sure, I gotta be back now anyways," she slurred, and tried to stand.

I helped her up and kept supporting her with my arm and we walked crookedly along the pavement, then off into the forest.

The officer on duty tonight was known to me and he stepped forward and I hastily waved him away, before she saw him. He got the message, waved and smirked at me and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. The aroma wafted our way as he continued his rounds, walking off to the far side of the forest, giving me some space. He had no way of knowing what I was up to, and no doubt he thought we were about to have sex against a tree.

"I gotta go alone from here," she said and I took a deep bracing breath and faced what I had to do next.

"May I kiss you, Tory?" I asked and she grinned and turned to face me, moving in closer.

"Maybe we should keep tonight and the date a secret, not make James mad," I suggested, and kissed her lips, avoiding gagging at the alcohol on her breath.

"Wow," she said, and pulled at me.

"Hey, see you soon. Tomorrow if you can get away to see me. I'll be in the bar again tomorrow night," I promised.

She took her shoes off and held them in one hand and started walking away.

"Don't look, you go home now," she called and I waved and turned, walking away, then running parallel through the trees and watching the little house she entered, eventually, when she managed to get her key in the lock.

Now I had to decide. Tell the cops and risk an all out raid and hope James wasn't in the basement with the girls, or meet Tory again and continue the romance, and get her to take me home one night soon?

The cold hard end of a pistol against the back of my head suggested neither option was available to me now.


	9. Chapter 9

As If I Never existed

Chapter 9

James POV

Vicky had been to the bar five nights in a row before he turned up. Usually she stayed until closing, so seeing her returning earlier, and not alone, gave me the heads up. She wasn't a complete fool, she wouldn't bring anyone else back here, therefore she has finally hooked up with the elusive Edward Cullen.

I chose what she wore, and insisted she add the charm bracelet I had confiscated off Bella when I first took her.

It worked better if I locked them away naked, no adornments, and just an old mattress on the floor with a few blankets. Yelling out caused those blankets to be confiscated for a while, good behaviour got them back.

Vicky didn't want to wear the bracelet but a slapping soon convinced her it was a nice fashion accessory after all. I wanted the right pigeon to fancy her and if he saw that bracelet, it would inspire him to try and break in here and I was looking forward so much to his visit.

My TV looks ordinary, but actually we don't even get programmes, it's just hooked up to several small cameras on the outside of my house and at various locations in the forest so I am always aware who is in the vicinity. Vicky was bringing home the pigeon, so to speak.

So this was the wonderful Edward, brother of my new little bird, ex boyfriend of the beautiful Bella. I had been thinking idly about what to do with him when he walked into my web.

Killing him straight off was too easy, I wanted to get to know this man. Find out what made him come here now. Eight years on and only Charlie Swan had looked and searched this area, now we had Edward and half the US police force it seemed.

I screwed a silencer onto my gun, no point calling attention to myself if I have to shoot him out there.

Bella's POV

Alice and I were talking about her parents and also old friends we had in common once, and she was updating me when the trapdoor flew open and a rather unsteady Victoria appeared.

"Holy Fuck, Bella, you didn't tell me how fuck hot Edward is, you bad girl," she laughed and promptly fell down the stairs.

She landed at the bottom on the hard floor with a sickening thump and I moved and checked to see if she was dead.

Dead drunk, maybe.

A large bruise was already appearing on her forehead. She needed ice, but she was breathing okay. It was unlike her to be drunk, she usually drank James under the table and showed virtually no affects of alcohol. It was as if she had been drinking water, especially when they drank Bacardi.

Maybe she just slipped.

"Bella, what happened?" Alice asked anxiously.

"Vicky fell down the stairs and the trapdoor's open," I said, running for the stairs. "I'll be back, Alice, I promise. I have to get the key."

I looked out of the closet, no sign of James.

His bedroom was out of bounds but the sight of that shiny key hanging on the hook was too tempting so I ran quickly into the room and grabbed it. Now I had to get some ice from the freezer...

The front door banged open and James stood there, with another man as I leaned over gathering a handful of snow from the inside wall of the appliance, nobody bothered ever defrosting it.

I knew Edward immediately but I knew better than to react.

"Vicky fell," I cried, and headed down the stairs, placing the ice wrapped in a towel on her face and hiding the keys under her body.

"Bella, come here, we need you for our party," James sang.

I checked Vicky's pulse and climbed the stairs again, slowly. I think she will be okay, she stirred when the ice touched the bump.

"Now Bella, this instant or I shoot him dead."

"Bella..." Alice pleaded, but there was no time.

James was holding a gun to Edward's head and he pushed him to a chair and barked for him to sit.

"Bella, look who I found. Your boyfriend. I told you he visited my house now and then, and here he is."

I stood there at the closet doorway, unsure what to do.

"Do you want to come and kiss him goodbye?" James asked.

I shook my head.

"Where's he going?" I asked.

James laughed.

"Straight to Hell unless I think of a game to play with him. Now, what game could I play? Do you have any suggestions, Bella?"

"No," I quickly answered.

Edward was looking at me and despite the terrible position he was in, he smiled and I couldn't help smiling back.

He was still beautiful but I couldn't help remembering he hadn't wanted me. I shuffled my feet and looked at James.

"Did you take my keys, Bella?" James asked, shaking his finger at me but smiling and I knew there was no point lying. I nodded.

"Bring them to me, now," he said quietly, with that deadly coldness I had heard before.

"Vicky has them," I said and he nodded dismissively. "Should I get them?"

"Nope, it's fine then," he answered.

I walked towards him and touched Edward's arm in passing and felt the connection zap me.

He was watching my eyes and I tore mine away and looked at James.

He smirked.

"Bella, you have been a naughty girl, coming upstairs without permission. But I forgive you," he smiled. "Okay, where are my handcuffs?" he growled and started pulling drawers open, throwing the contents all over the place, on the table, on the floor.

"Let her go. You have me, let her go," Edward said.

James straightened and walked in front of Edward, still holding the gun.

"Let her go? Does it look like I'm holding her here? Bella, tell Edward you are free to go anytime you want."

"I,I," I stuttered.

"Go on Bella, open the door," James ordered.

I opened the door and stopped dead still.

"James, there's a white car out there."

A white police cruiser. Where they included?

"Yes, Bella, there is."

"Will you ring the Government?" I asked.

"Bella, you've been talking to Alice, I know that. Do you believe Alice or do you believe me?"

I frowned. Things were strange, someone was lying but I didn't know who. I just couldn't understand why James would lie. He gave me food, he bought my clothes, he even bought me books.

"I don't know," I admitted.

"Go, Bella, run," Edward urged.

I stood there frozen then slowly shut the door. I was not risking dying for leaving without permission, like Jane.

James backhanded Edward with the pistol and his mouth trickled blood. His head fell forward and James laughed and lay the gun on the table.

"Where the fuck are my handcuffs? That fucking Vicky had them, what did she do with them?" he snarled, tossing things about.

I walked really slowly to the table and picked up the gun.

Words flooded my head. Charlie when I was barely a teen.

_Guns are dangerous, Bella. Always treat a gun as if it is fully loaded. Check the safety is on._

I did. It wasn't.

_Never let him get close enough to disarm you. Aim for the center of the chest so there's a chance you will hit him somewhere._

I stepped back, away from them and raised the pistol and aimed it at the two men, first at James then at Edward then back. One of these men is my enemy.

Edward was waking up, shaking his head and drops of blood flicked off his mouth.

James turned and looked at me and laughed.

"Bella, baby, come on, give me that," he ordered.

"No."

"Bella, GIVE ME THE GUN NOW."

I shook my head.

"Bella, give the gun to me," Edward said softly, holding out a single hand.

"No," I repeated.

"Bella, you can trust me. Give me the gun. I love you, Bella," James said in his sing song voice that he only used when he wanted to get his own way without violence. He rarely used it.

"Don't, Bella. He'll kill us both and kill Alice," Edward warned.

I turned the gun somewhere between the two.

"She doesn't trust you, Edward, You left her, crying, alone, in the forest. Remember that, Bella?"

I nodded, that was true.

"Bella, there are people out there who will help you. Go tell that policeman outside who you are and he'll take you to Charlie," Edward pleaded.

"Don't listen, Bella. He lied and he left you, remember. I never left you, did I? Ever? No matter what, you will always have a home here, Baby or we could go away. Would you like us to go away somewhere else? Just you and me. We'll leave Vicky to watch these two and go somewhere nice and start again. You will be my favorite, Bella. I'll always look after you."

"Don't, Bella. Don't believe him. He kept you locked up for eight years, he kept you a prisoner."

"Did I? Or do I let you go wherever you like? Do I keep you here, or do I let you visit the shops and buy pretty dresses?"

I nodded, frowning. He had. He had paid for all those new clothes Vicky helped me choose and he smiled and clapped when I modeled them for him later. I was pretty sure James did like me.

"He killed Jane. They found her body in the swamp."

James shook his head.

"No, Bella knows who executed Jane, don't you, Bella?"

"The bounty hunters," I said, my voice little louder than a whisper.

"Why would a bounty hunter kill a missing girl? Bounty hunters only search for missing bail jumpers and they don't kill them. They turn them in for the reward money."

Alice had said that, too.

James was getting annoyed.

" You know I'll keep looking after you forever. Ask Edward what he can offer you, Baby. Maybe he will leave again if you choose him. He likes leaving. You are too boring for him, Baby. He needs other women as well."

I turned my attention to Edward. If he said he wanted to marry me and buy me a little stone cottage and take me to Paris, I would know he was lying. He promised me all those things before, and he had lied and gone away instead.

"I would take you to Jacob. He's missed you terribly, love," Edward replied.

"Jacob!" I choked out, my eyes filling with tears. I never allowed myself to think about Jake because that would really break my heart.

My vision was blurred and I wiped my eyes.

James was standing there, relaxed, sure he would win.

"Don't trust him, he lies," James reminded me, smiling. "Lies and leaves, leaves and goes away and doesn't come back for eight years."

"Bella, there are a lot of people wanting you back. Charlie misses you, and he is still looking for you. Renee comes to Forks every Christmas and sits in your bedroom and shows your brothers and sister your room. They want to meet you," Edward said.

I stiffened.

I shook my head at him.

"Renee is here , in the other basement, isn't she, James?" I said, knowing now Edward must be the one lying.

"No, Renee lives in Florida and is married again, to a man named Phil Dwyer. They have three children," Edward insisted.

"What are their names?" I asked. If he didn't know, or he made them up, I would know. Renee always wanted a son and I knew the name she would give him.

Edward rubbed his face.

"Let me think. I haven't seen them but Esme has, she tells me things about them. She has photos. The girl is Emily? No, Emmy-Lou!" he said triumphantly.

I nodded, Renee's favorite singer was Emmy-Lou Harris. That was possible.

"What are the boys' names?" I asked.

"Um, there's something funny about the older one. She named him one thing then changed it later. Let me think. Something John. Robert-John with a hyphen? And she first named him John-Robert, I'm pretty sure. The other's named something weird. Casey? Caius?"

I smiled.

"Caius was Renee's favorite grandfather."

"Ha, anyone could find that out and guess that's the name she would choose if she had a son," James said dismissively. It wasn't Caius' name that convinced me, it was John-Robert's. Or Robert-John's.

I laughed.

"What's so funny?" James asked.

"Edward is telling the truth. Renee was a little wild, her first lovers were two boys at High School. They all got drunk one night when her parents were out and she never knew which one took her virginity, John or Robert. She told me the story once when she was quite tipsy. She always said if she had a son, she would name him after those boys. But she could never remember which one took her first so I can well imagine her finding out too late and having to reverse the order. That's so Renee," I laughed, so happy she was not in the other basement.

"Bella, stop this crap now and give me the gun," James growled, walking towards me. I lined up the end with the middle of his torso and he paused.

"You won't shoot me, you love me," James said. "I saved you. You were a snivelling mess when I found you. He did that to you and he knew, and he didn't even care. He never came back, Bella. Never. He had girlfriends, he lived with two different girls. He loved them, not you."

Edward's eyes looked guilty. James was telling the truth. The gun wavered, at James, at Edward, at James again.

_Gently does it, like a caress, just gently pull the trigger back._

I froze. What if I was wrong? What if Edward was a bounty hunter and he wanted me to kill James so he could then kill me? James had hidden me here safely for eight years.

I gasped as I was pushed aside and Victoria grabbed the gun from my hand. I hadn't even heard her come up the stairs.

While I had hesitated, Vicky had not.

The noise was a lot quieter than I expected, yet still frightening and I looked at the gun in her hand. A man coughed.

James stood there in front of us, so close now, but he looked wrong. Shocked, surprised, frozen in time. Then he pitched backward and I saw the bloody third eye in the middle of his forehead.

Edward stood and walked slowly towards Vicky, hands out in front of himself.

"Give me the gun," he said quietly.

Vicky put the gun in her pocket. A series of screams sounded from below.

"Get Alice, she's in the basement, he's hurt her. Hurry. I will alert the coppers," she said and walked to the door.

" Call out to Officer Frank Dennahay. He knows I'm here. Show me where she is, Bella," Edward asked.

I held his hand and led him down the stairs. The door to The Box was unlocked, open.

We peered inside.

Empty.

The sound of the trapdoor slamming caught us both by surprise.

Edward pushed past me and hammered uselessly on the door as we heard the lock click .

X~x~X

Alice was in the other bedroom, the one that was officially Vicky's but she rarely used it now. She was tied up, and lying under the covers screaming wildly but otherwise safe and Edward freed her.

"Get me out of here," she cried, and I reached out to hold her.

"Vicky has locked us in this basement, we can't get out," I explained.

"But why? Isn't she a prisoner as well?"

Edward shrugged.

"She told me she had been with James for ten years yet he has had Bella here for eight, so that means James had her under his spell in only two years. That seems kind of unlikely. Tell us what he did to you, Bella. Why couldn't you shoot him?"

"He's never hurt me. He protected me. He never left me, he cared about me!" I shouted.

"He lied to you," Edward answered.

"Everybody lies, Edward. At least he didn't tell me he was going to marry me and build me a stone cottage in his meadow and have children with me. He never slept with me. He never broke a single promise. He kept me safe. I can't believe Vicky shot him."

"Vicky shot him?" Alice questioned. "Dead?"

"Very dead," Edward replied.

"Then why is she keeping us here? I thought it was his sick insane game, not hers."

"Maybe we were wrong about that. Maybe she was in it too. Maybe it was her idea, though I can't imagine that, she seems to resent Bella living here with them."

"What's going to happen to us, Edward?" Alice cried.

"I have no idea but there will be a lot more suspicion and activity now. Frank was on duty here and he saw me with Vicky. He will report that to someone."

"You didn't tell anyone you were coming here?" Alice screeched in anguish.

"I ran into her at the bar in town. I didn't plan that, it just happened. Jasper had left to go look after Joshua, I was alone. There was nobody to tell, and I met Victoria and came home with her to find out what I could. She told me about the basement. Damn it, I should have walked away then and called the police. I should have told Charlie. I was so sure I could find a way inside and get you both out myself. Nobody even believes I saw Bella, they think she's dead."

"That's because they found a skeleton in some house in town, in Honeysuckle Lane. I don't know why it's relevant, I could only overhear so much of the conversation. Dad went to look at it and was talking to Frank about it. But nobody was game to tell you. Dad was waiting for DNA testing before he broke the news."

"Not Jane? She was found in the swamp. She wasn't skeletal," Edward said, dazed.

"Really? They found her body? How sad. No, another body, an older one, dating back to between seven and ten years ago," Alice stated.

"There was another girl?" Edward said, incredulous.

"It seems so but nobody reported any other young girl missing from around here in that time frame so it did appear it must be Bella."

"The Laurent grandfather has a house in that lane. Now I understood the attitude I'm getting from the police. They thought they had proof Bella was dead, so they concluded I had made a mistake, and not seen her at all. It seemed James' had killed at least one other girl."

EPOV

Eventually we had no choice but to sleep. Bella and Alice crawled into her bed and I slept in Vicky's.

In the morning there was a newspaper sitting on the top step.

_Two Men Disappear In Meadowlea. Edward Cullen, a local doctor's son, and police officer Frank Dennahay both disappeared from sight last night._

I didn't read any further just yet. She had obviously killed Frank seeing he wasn't in here with us. I had brought about his death as surely as if I had shot him myself.


	10. Chapter 10

_Water for Elephants_ has passed the $100m milestone, coming at $105.1m worldwide.

As of May 22, _Water for Elephants_' top overseas markets were: Australia with $6.85m, Germany with $5.75m, France with $5.39m, the United Kingdom with $5.19m, and Mexico with $2.73m. (See, I told you we Aussies love Reesie and Rob)

Oh and I'm being talked about at a blog "Just A Little Lamb", it looks like fun. Go trash me there.

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 10

Edward's POV

Our routine developed over the next few days. Bella alone was permitted upstairs and she cooked for us all and reported everything she saw while away. Victoria was apparently no housekeeper and she needed Bella to clean the house itself and do her laundry, and we hoped, eventually trust her enough to send her on errands alone. She was no longer allowed out in the yard, even to hang out washing so Victoria bought a clothes drier and had it installed. We could hear nothing from upstairs with the trapdoor closed, and my initial hope had been to catch Vicky unawares when she opened it in the early hours before dawn. Bella told us, with the cctv, she had a clear view of the entire room the stairs led down into, so there was no way to hide and I didn't really imagine I could run fast enough to get across the room, and up the steps before she shut the hatch at the first sign of my attempt.

I was then thinking more along the lines of deprogramming Bella. If we could convince her all the rubbish James and Victoria had put into her brain was just that, pure unadulterated rubbish, then maybe she would accept the truth and lose her fear of white vehicles.

There would always be a white car or van in sight, she couldn't avoid them, so she had to be convinced they were harmless.

It was a clever ploy James had used, frightening her this way.

I worried greatly about her mental health because she was so sure about some of the ridiculous things James had fooled her into believing.

And even Alice and I pointing out how he lied about Renee being captured as well did us little good.

"Edward, you don't understand. I'm glad he didn't take her. I'm glad he lied and just pretended. It would have killed me if I had messed up and caused him to report her or kill her."

"Bella, there is nobody he reported to."

"He called them every single time we left the house!" she retorted.

"Then he called nobody. He faked the calls," I came back at her.

"You believe what you want. James sometimes let me talk to the Government, he was not faking the calls."

"Was it a woman he spoke to by any chance? Was Victoria in your sight when you talked to this Government official?" I asked her.

"It was a man. I can tell the difference, even on a phone and Vicky was there with me most times, because she and I went out together as often as I went out alone."

That could only mean a third person was involved.

Charlie's POV

When the report came in about Frank being missing, I had that bad feeling in my gut that whoever was taking the girls was behind it. Frank would never desert his post, for any reason. He was a seasoned officer, not some young punk, and he would never have tried to be a hero. Someone had taken him out, I was convinced. The only news we would hear about him would be bad news.

Edward was a different story. I didn't trust him to be thinking clearly now his sister Alice was gone as well and he may will imagine he is a superhero and try something reckless. He was clearly still besotted or maybe, besotted again, with Bella, and determined to find her and he had been frustrated beyond belief at our lack of progress.

We hadn't let him in on everything we were doing. He wasn't an officer, merely a civilian and thus we could hardly expect him to be acting like a professional. His 'disappearance' could merely mean he was off half-cocked on some angle of his own, but I was keeping an open mind. It was the press who ran with the idea he was a 'misper', and I was yet to add him to our Missing Person files.

My theory was we wait a few days and see if he turns up with some plan, Edward was always a man with a plan.

A tall blond stranger wandered into my police station and introduced himself as Jason Jenks, Private Investigator, working for Edward himself. He had been searching for Bella almost as long as I had but like me, he had no leads and I had no problem accepting his help. We are a small station and all hands were already on deck so a new pair of eyes could come in handy and if not, well, it was no skin off my back.

We were comparing what few notes we had and were interrupted by news that a burnt out police cruiser had been located down on the Res, and it seemed two bodies were inside.

Obviously one would be Frank, and that was bad enough, but was the other Edward? I didn't think I could stand another tragedy.

The only thing that kept me sane was the report coming in minutes later, stating unequivocally that the skeleton found at Honeysuckle Lane was definitely not my daughter. As I had blocked that idea from my mind from the start I could finally allow myself to think again, and breathe, I think I'd held my breath ever since it had been discovered in the course of our investigations.

Carlisle and Esme both dropped in during the course of the day; Carlisle, like myself, thought Edward was off on a hunch of his own. He had been inconsistent about turning up for work lately, so no alarm bells there. He was a grown man, and this perverted monster was stealing young women, there couldn't be such a dramatic shift, unless of course Edward had gotten too close. Frank had clearly seen or heard something dangerous to the perp, thus his premature death. If things went on like this, I was wondering if the FBI themselves would become involved, or, more accurately, take over the entire investigation. I'm sure the only reason it hasn't come to their attention earlier is because it was just a series of unexplained absences, but now we had dead bodies.

The most common reason for an adult to disappear is the desire for a fresh start and young women with man problems are always the most likely to take off, so it was never easy knowing how serious each disappearance was.

All I know for sure, my Bella would never go away and stay away this long. When she first disappeared, my fear was she had somehow gone after Edward, and I admit, my nervousness sitting by the phone waiting to hear any news was tinged with the fear she may have shot him. He really hurt her far more badly than one would think possible at that age. She grieved like a widow. Renee was on the verge of coming to force her to see 'someone' to talk her problems out with, when she went.

It beats me how my ex-wife just managed to move on with her life and have those three kids with Phil, like everything was normal, because I sure as Hell had found it hard to simply exist without Bella. Without knowing where she was.

Now we knew the skeleton wasn't Bella, thank the gods, I had to consider Edward may have been right after all. He may have really seen her those two times.

Alice had been less sure. She knew Bella adored her brother and she didn't buy into her forgetting Edward, who could really forget someone that significant to them?

My head ached and my heart hurt. Two such special girls, and I was sure Jane and the unknown skeletal girl were just as precious to their families, who was doing this? How could we stop them?

After an entire week and no Edward, I decided we had to make a move.

"Tom, I want James Laurent brought in for questioning. I know the bastard's involved, let's see what a few days in a cell does for him. Charge him with loitering or littering, disturbing the peace, or anything that enables us to hold him for the next week."

Tom ripped the paper off the fax machine.

"Can't do that, Boss. They just got a positive ID off the second body in the cruiser. James Laurent the younger. The grandson. Shot at close range through the forehead. Frank was shot from behind, probably never saw him coming, whoever he is, now James is out of the picture."

"Fuck me," I exclaimed. I hadn't expected that for a moment. I called Carlisle immediately and he cut me short so he could call Esme and lay their minds at rest over one massive fear. It wasn't their Edward dead in that car.

But James was dead. And if he had the girls somewhere, then where the Hell were they and would they now starve to death?

"I'll go break the news to Victoria Rush myself. I wish we had a way to keep a close eye on the girl."

Jason Jenks looked up from reading the report.

"Chief, how about I go befriend her? Maybe we could find out one way or the other if she is involved, if I were to become her friend? She is single now," he said with a smirk. "From what I've heard over the years, the lady will not like being alone and will welcome a new man about the house. Why not me? I mean, James Laurent was much my built and general description. Maybe she likes well built blond men. Worth a try?"

I shrugged.

We had nothing so far, why not? Maybe he would waste his time but really, hadn't the last eight years he'd been employed been a waste if it came to that?

"Go ahead but I know nothing and if you happen to start up a friendship with any female in this town, it's hardly my business."

"Thanks, Chief."

"Jenks, report to me and only me. Let's keep this under wraps until you find out something useful. I want to say go easy for a week or two, maybe introduce yourself as a friend of James' from the old days, but time is our enemy now. We have to locate those girls quickly, it may be too late already. Have you ever done time?"

"No, Chief, of course not."

"Pity, you could have been an old cell mate but don't lie too much, keep it close to the truth. Old pals, could be enough."

I drove out to break the news and Victoria herself opened the door, and invited me in. The house was cleaner and tidier, with no man mucking it up, probably.

"Chief Swan. Come on in."

Jason walked up behind me.

"Oh, am I interrupting? I'm an old friend of James Laurent, just passing through, thought I might pay him a visit."

"If you could wait outside for five minutes, Sir, I would appreciate that. I'm afraid I have some very bad news for the lady here. Please leave if she asks you to. She may not want to be talking to a stranger at this sad time."

Victoria looked puzzled and I shut the door and took off my hat.

"Sit down, Chief. Cup of tea? Coffee?"

"It's not a social visit, I'm afraid. You will be aware of the disappearance of one of my officers and the discovery of two bodies in the cruiser he was assigned to use? I'm afraid the other body has been identified as James Laurent."

The wail that came from her throat was horrific, and I feared she would pass out.

She cried and screamed and pounded the tabletop in sorrow. I've scarcely ever felt so damned sorry for anyone before, truth be told.

She'd reported his absence but been sure he was 'off on a bender' or sneaking about on 'his hobby' otherwise known as burglary, or even off with another woman. This was the last thing she had expected.

"I'm really sorry, Victoria but I have to ask. Is there any chance James was involved with the disappearances? You can't hurt him now. I'll make sure you get immunity, if you aren't involved, and I am sure you aren't."

She dried her eyes and lay a shaking hand on the table.

I took it in my own.

"Chief, he was violent to me and I'm really afraid he did take them and hide them somewhere nearby. Maybe in the town, he has a house there that he inherited from his Pa, you know."

"I do know that. We discovered the remains of a young lady there earlier this week. I'm sorry to add to your pain but it does look bad for James. We think he is the man behind the death of the girl in the forest as well. Think back, has he ever been missing, regularly? He must have held Jane for some time before he killed her, maybe the other girl as well."

"He was always going away, Chief Swan. He left me all alone for days on end sometimes. I always suspected he was with another woman, but this is so shocking. Not my James, surely. Not him. I can't cope with all this."

I patted her hand and sighed at the fresh outpouring of tears. I hated leaving her alone but I had to get back to work.

"Victoria, maybe this friend of James could be of some help to you. Would you like to talk to him? Or should I warn him off? You decide what's best for you, don't feel obligated to see him."

Now I felt almost guilty for allowing Jason's deception.

"No, I'd like to talk to a friend who knew the real James. The James I loved with all my heart. We were going to be married," she wailed.

I disentangled my hand from hers, at least it was clear she had not been involved.

"I'll keep in touch. No doubt there will be more questions, I'm afraid, Victoria. I'll send the young man in, shall I?"

She nodded tearfully and I beckoned to Jason and he entered the kitchen and sat in the chair I had just vacated.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," he said, and I closed the door.

X~x~X

Alice's POV

Apart from anything else, being locked up here was boring. I mean, I'm really glad to be out of that black hole and in a real bedroom, but I'm used to my days being filled with caring for Josh and running errands and being with Jasper at night.

Bella is gone half the day, Edward is frustrated beyond belief, he is obsessed that there must be a way out but it's a basement.

I keep telling him that. If he takes down the cinder block walls the dirt will fall in and bury us. Currently he's in the black hole, standing on a chair, looking for a weakness around the edge of the ceiling and I have to ask him to leave whenever I need to use it as a bathroom. I mean, it's disgusting and inadequate and takes forever to just wash your hands and the smell!

Bella is lucky, she gets to shower upstairs in hot water, how blissful. How sad is it when your mind drifts away from missing your precious baby and husband, to fantasizing about hot water?

Bella did me the biggest and best favor and convinced that woman I needed to use a proper bathroom 'that week' and I must say I have never enjoyed having my monthlies more. I dragged them out for eleven days before Victoria lost her cool and threatened to not let me up again next month if I didn't admit they were done and go back to using the black hole.

That led me to feeling really depressed, knowing we would be here next month.

I lay on her bed in a funk and looked idly at her few books.

Honestly, the woman only reads basic 'housewife porn' and there's no way I need those feelings activated. She has a diary or journal of sorts but her handwriting is so bad, I didn't even try to read it. Bella picked it up herself one afternoon and asked me what language it was written in and I looked closer.

Oh my God, she writes in Russian!

My best friend at Elementary School, Tatiana, was Russian and I fancied her brother so much, I taught myself the language. It took years but I am fairly fluent in reading and writing. Speaking it is another matter, not so hot.

_I met a really pretty boy today, his name is James and he likes visiting the club and partaking of the games there._

God, not a Dungeon and Dragons freak, I hope.

_Usually it's the girls who get tied up and the guys that do the 'punishments' but James enjoys it both ways. He's as keen for me to thrash him with a whip as he is to whip me back. And like me he seems to have no limits. We were both streaked with blood down our backs after our first session and the hot sex that followed was just...well, hot._

Whoa, this was better than the Mills and Boons on her shelf. I settled down for a long read and Bella walked off and went to talk to Edward when she saw I was totally immersed.

X~x~X

EPOV

Backing off and letting Bella come to me when she wanted was my first strategy and it was working. You can only stand so much of Alice's lectures about fashion and style and how pitifully most women in the country dress.

She is refusing to dwell on the time she is missing of Joshua's young life in case it sends her bat crazy so she tends to stick with what she knows, and I watched Bella's eyes glaze over often during Alice's soliloquies about natural fiber and fair trade clothing.

I'm sure it's all very important but who the Hell even cares?

I have tapped every single inch of that 'bathroom' ceiling and nothing. The man may have built this house himself but he knew what he was doing. The only opening was the tiny hole the water pipe entered down into the bathtub and it was sealed with some kind of modern epoxy filler so no luck there even.

The basement is gloomy of course and the only light is from the naked bulbs in the ceilings, added later than the original build, but still not of any use to me when it comes to finding a weak spot in the structure.

I was all for lifting out some of the cinder blocks and trying to dig a tunnel but the girl were convinced the entire basement would collapse in on them. That meant I had nothing to do and all day to do it. If anyone told me I would one day lay in bed all day reading a romance novel, I would have laughed but here I am.

It's not that bad but I'm reading it slowly, trying to eek it out in rations, four pages each hour. In between I try and sleep but we get plenty of that a night. Exercise is what I really want.

Pacing the perimeter of the floor in the main room takes seconds rather than minutes but it's all I have so every hour, four pages, then half an hour pacing, then checking on the level of bathwater eeking slowly from the faucet.

Unlike some people, I have never been allowed upstairs and warm water is a dream to me now. Literally, I do dream about steam filled bathrooms with bathtubs filled with hot water and bubble bath and a loofa and a naked Bella washing my back...

Yeah, it's been too long. I will be as crazy as she is by the time we get out. I've left notes for Victoria on the top step and she answers, but she doesn't seem to have any plan. I think we are still here only because she doesn't know what else to do with us. Whether she plans to take Bella with her when she finally flees is the question, and whether she will just leave Alice and I locked up, to slowly starve, is the question. A bullet would be better but I'm hardly going to ask her for that.

I was crouched in a mere four inches of cold bathwater, doing my best to keep myself clean, when the door opened and Bella stood there, obviously unaware I was already using the bathroom. She swayed a little on her feet and I smirked.

I almost covered my nakedness then decided, hey, she was my friend and she had seen everything before, just act natural.

"Hey Bella, I am almost done. Any clue what you will be cooking for us today?" I asked and stood, wrapping a small and dingy towel around my waist, but not before Bella's eyes slid down my body and checked me out.

I pulled out the washcloth I was using to keep the water in the tub, and the dirty bathwater flowed away, so much more quickly than this damn tub filled.

"Um, I think, let's see, what day...um, I don't..." Her face went crimson.

She was clearly flustered and I stepped out of the tub and left the small dark room.

"It's all yours, enjoy," I said with a smile and she stood looking at me then shut the door.

"Edward, did you just flash your goods at Bella?" Alice asked, sitting up against the wall in her bedroom, book open on her knees.

I shrugged and smirked.

"Bad Edward," she scolded and laughed at me.

Wearing what I assumed were a dead man's clothes, I pulled on jeans a little too short in the leg and a Tshirt and stretched out on the bed.

According to the cheap plastic clock that ticked our lives away on the far wall in the main room, it was time for four more pages.

_Carissa moaned and Tad pulled her in closer, baring her magnificent bosom to his unerring gaze. He ran his fingers lightly across her nipples and sighed, burying his face in the magnificent red hair that flowed down her shoulders._

"_Carissa, my love, I cannot restrain myself a moment longer, I have to have you."_

Problem, even the cold bath water cannot keep my body from responding, and I closed the book and considered maybe this was night time reading, when my sister and Bella were fast asleep. I certainly didn't need either of them listening to me jack off.

I put the book under my pillow, bending the top of the page to keep my place and looked up to see Bella standing in my doorway, looking apprehensive.

"Bella? Are you okay?" I asked and she bit her lip. I loved the torture she had always put that lip through, it made me want to suck it into my own mouth and kiss it better.

"I have a rash," she said hesitantly.

"Make an appointment with my receptionist at the front desk," I joked and she frowned.

Okay, not funny.

"Come in and show me, it's probably nothing. Just the lack of decent soap can cause ugly rashes and God knows the cheap crap Vicky gives us is enough to scour off the top layer of your skin. Maybe your skin is irritated."

She walked slowly towards me and raise her shirt self consciously.

Red spots with thick crusts, oh yeah, the varicella zoster virus. We have chicken pox as our new flatmate.

"They are really itchy," she said as I looked over her back, holding up her shirt out of the way.

"Anywhere else?" I asked.

She blushed and nodded.

"Anywhere that you feel comfortable showing me?" I amended the question.

She lowered her jeans down several inches, her backside was literally covered in red angry spots and her clothes were chaffing them.

"You need a few days in bed, naked, and we need some Calamine lotion. When is Vicky opening the trapdoor to let you upstairs to cook?"

"Around noon, she said."

"Right, then I'll ask her to get you some. You can't be cooking, you shouldn't be handling food."

"Am I contagious?" she asked.

"Yes but I know I've already had them. Alice," I called,"Have you had chicken pox?"

She screamed a little.

"No, and keep them away from me, I can't take the virus home to Josh. He's just a baby."

She slid from her bed and closed the door.

"Looks like you get to sleep in my bed. Lucky the sheets are fresh this morning," I said, truly meaning that. I was used to a fulfilling sex life, I couldn't help what I dreamed about and my body's reaction to those dreams.

She was very lucky today was sheet changing day and the soiled ones were already upstairs.

Bella did all the laundry as Vicky wouldn't trust Alice upstairs except for her bathroom privileges that I envied.

I left the room so she could undress and slip into bed, and then I sat beside her and felt her forehead.

"How could you not have complained, you are very hot, Bella. How long have you felt bad?"

"A few days," she replied. "It's not that bad."

"Well that depends if Victoria has had these already or she could get sick as well. You were contagious for the last four days before the spots showed. I don't want to think about the consequences of her needing bed rest."

She would not be concerned about us if she was really ill herself. We were completely at her mercy for food.

The sound of the hatch opening pulled me from her bedside.

"Bella? Bella, come up now," Vicky ordered.

I stayed in my doorway and spoke.

"Bella has chicken pox. She needs some paracetamol and calamine lotion or she could scratch herself into a serious infection," I said to the girl at the top of the hatch. "And a pair of cotton mittens or gloves, or even just socks would do."

Victoria tapped the door impatiently.

"She can still cook, right?"

"She's ill, do you want to catch this from her?"

"Tell her to come out here, I want to see for myself."

Bella walked past me trailing the top sheet but dropped it and stood buck naked, beyond caring at this point. Her body was badly spotted, her thighs and abdomen in particular.

"Yuk, stay away. I guess I will have to go to the drug store. No way could I trust Alice to do that. Alice, open your door," she ordered. "As soon as I get back, I need you to come upstairs and take over Bella's chores. There's the washing to be done and cooking and my bathroom needs cleaning. I'll come back for you shortly. Go to bed, Bella."

I stood back inside the bedroom and helped her back into bed, and we heard the trapdoor shut and as always, we all waited in case she didn't lock it.

Click.

Damn, the woman just never forgets.

Bella went downhill rapidly and all I had was that washcloth and a small soup bowl of water, but I washed her down and tried to cool her forehead as she slept, restlessly, calling out as the fever increased.

"Help me, Edward, help me."

I shivered, too much like my dark dream.

By the time Vicky was back, I was panicked, surely nobody got this ill from chicken pox? I knew it killed people in the past but she was young and relatively healthy, not an infant or elderly person. They were the ones at risk.

Victoria left the purchases at the top step and I asked for a larger bowl and slightly warm water and a clean washcloth.

She was clearly annoyed but locked the hatch then opened it and put the bowl on the step, and then called to my sister.

"Alice, take all this stuff to Bella then come upstairs. Don't forget, I have my friend the gun and I am a pretty crack shot so no ideas."

Bella drank from the bottles of water we were given each day and took the tablets and I sat beside the bed and waited.

"I have to paint this stuff on every spot, Bella, so is that okay?"

She nodded and I lifted the sheet away and gently covered every single sore with the bright pink liquid. Some places they were so thickly spread, it was like just painting whole sections of her body. Her inner thighs were coated and I knew I had to check her genitals but she seemed too out of it to care so I gently attended to that area and blew softly to make the thick liquid dry quicker.

She tossed a little restlessly but stayed asleep.

I was a doctor, I had been treating patients in my four years of in hospital training, but staying professional and removed when the body you dream about is at your fingertips and at your mercy is different. I wanted to kiss her all over, not be dabbing her with this stuff.

I wanted her to allow me access in these places for entirely different reasons.

Once she was completely covered and dried, I turned her over and started on her back and couldn't resist sliding a hand down that captivating and spot free curve of her lower back.

I don't know why but touching her there had always made me feel like she was mine and I never touched another girl in that way.

I put my arm around their shoulders or held their hands, sure, but that hand on the small of their back thing was somehow too intimate.

Ridiculous, sure, I know, considering the other things I had done with them.

I sat still and realised, I was probably the only man who had ever touched this woman. I know Jake had been there for her as much as she allowed him to be when I first left, before she barred him from the house, but he would have crowed endlessly had Bella ever let him touch her in any way other than friendship.

No matter if she hated me now, I was still the only man who had seen her naked, willingly, and the only man who had made love to her and suddenly I knew what I had done to her.

It hit me like a tsunami.

I had killed us, I had walked away, I had actually believed there could be another woman out there for me.

Or maybe deep down, I had selfishly thought she might wait and take me back after I had my fun.

I had never considered how I would feel if she slept with other guys, that thought would have forced me to rethink my determination to get out into the world and screw around like I had. I'd treated three other women as if they were as important to me as Bella was, yet I knew from the start that was never the case. I had cheapened not only myself, but what Bella and I had shared.

I'd reduced us to unimportant, not special, not sacred.

I was indeed the monster of the story.

I bent and placed a single kiss on her forehead.

"I'm so very sorry, love. I was never worthy of your love. You know that now. I'm sorry for deceiving you, please believe me when I say I did believe those words at the time. I meant every promise, I just didn't allow myself to deliver them to you because I was young and stupid and you were too good for me."

Her fingers reached out for my hand and entwined themselves with mine and she opened her eyes, red rimmed and sore, and smiled at me.

"I love you, Edward," she said, and I smiled.

"I love you and even though that was the fever talking and not you, believe me, those were the sweetest words ever spoken."


	11. Chapter 11

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 11

EPOV

Caring for Bella was wonderful, as strange as that might sound. She was asleep by early evening so I still had time to myself, though I left Carissa and Tad under the bed.

Every day I washed her body clean several times over, helped her to the bathroom and back, and repainted her spots. Even as the fever abated and she became rational again, she accepted my touches on every part of her body and never showed the slightest embarrassment as I made sure every single spot was located and coated.

She got a few on her nose which caused her more embarrassment than those in her intimate areas.

The only way I could remain detached when I was 'there' was by talking to her constantly, about anything, about my newest car, my dorm room at college, my newest living arrangements in the guest cottage in my parents backyard.

"Are you still going to build a house on your meadow?" she asked as she sipped a bottle of water through a straw.

Victoria obviously cared about Bella, despite what she had said. She was forever sending things back down with Alice, who was actually enjoying going upstairs to do the housework each day. She said having a proper bathroom to use was worth the effort of doing the meals and washing.

"Um, no, not now, I kind of feel like that was something I would have only done with you. It would just feel wrong to live there by myself. Too many memories," I smiled.

"Then what will happen to it?"

"I guess maybe I'll just sell the meadow. It would be very desirable, it's got all those acres of forest around it. Even a famous popstar could build a hideaway in there and never be snapped by the paparazzi."

"But you love that place."

"So did you."

"I still do, I went there sometimes, after you left," she admitted.

"You made it all the way through the forest alone? Did you break your legs or anything?" I smirked.

"No, I was kind of in and out of despair. Some days I just wanted to forget but other days I had to remember, so I went there."

I had no idea what to say to her. My own heart felt the pain and I hated myself even more. How could I have done that to someone I loved? I didn't even have the excuse I had fallen out of love by then, or was obsessed with someone else.

I replaced her, in parts, first I used Tanya to replace the sex, then Angela to replace the conversation, then Bree to replace the beauty but none of them were what she was. She was the complete article, every type of girl I wanted in one.

"You can have it if you want. I'll never build on it. I'd love it if you did though."

"Tell me about your girlfriends," she said. She didn't seem distressed so I looked away and condensed that first year away at college and honestly explained what I saw in Tanya. Then I told her about Angela, who she knew vaguely from high school, then about Bree.

"So, who's next? You must have been working on your next conquest when Victoria brought you here."

"No, I was kind of back in reality. I finally believed Charlie when he said you didn't leave of your own accord. He convinced me somebody took you. I had always thought you needed to get away from Forks and just left."

"I would never leave Charlie. Or Jake."

"So, when we get out of here, do you think you and Jake might get together at last?" I asked lightly. I kept my voice level and avoided her eyes, checking the spots on her left knee. They were merely marks now, and didn't strictly need calamine any more but I liked doing it.

She took so long to answer I glanced up for a second to find her staring at me.

"I'm broken, Edward. Nobody would want me now. I know that James changed my brain and stopped me thinking but during the fever, I had so many dreams about my old life and now I know he made me believe stuff that isn't true. I know there was no Third World War, you and Alice have no reason to lie. I still struggle with the whole bounty hunter thing because I don't understand why he said that if it wasn't true."

"Bella, when you were a kid, did Renee ever tell you she had eyes in the back of her head? Esme told us that and she had this uncanny way of knowing things we got up to, even though they happened when she wasn't there. Now we know she was simply hearing things from her friends and neighbors, there's always someone willing to report what naughty things children do out of their parents sight. Every time Emmett and I did something stupid and foolhardy, there were witnesses, of course word got back to Carlisle and he would tell Esme. But we always believed she had some mystical way of seeing us no matter how far away we got to do our silly deeds. James used the same idea. If you believe you are being watched, you behave. You do what he tells you to do.

White cars are everywhere. Had he risked saying yellow cars, for instance, you may have had an entire day out in a village like this, and not seen a yellow car. Or green, or purple. He chose white because many service vehicles are white, vans are white, cruisers are white. So many white cars. He knew you would see many of them at any given time. And he never specified what type of vehicle. Had he said yellow Porches, you would have only feared Alice, for instance."

"So, there's truly no Government bounty hunters?"

"No, love, there aren't."

"So, anyone can leave their home and not report in?"

"I expect maybe ex prisoners on bail with that home detention scheme, where they are under house arrest, have to report in if they leave their houses, but that's what probably gave him the idea. Did the so called government official always sound like the same person?"

"Maybe. Yes, he did."

"Then no doubt James paid someone to play along and why would he let you talk to a real Government official, Bella? He was your master, you were his slave, why let you hear them speak unless to convince you it was true. Believe me, in a situation like that, an official would never speak to anyone other than the Boss or you could call him and tell him you had James permission and that would defeat the whole reason for it in the first place. He was controlling you. If we ever get out of here, I personally will walk you out that door and we will both wave at white vehicles and get nothing back except the odd wave.

In fact, if Vicky sends you out alone, wave to a driver in a white car. I swear at most, he will wave back. He'll probably wonder who the heck you are and ignore you completely."

She frowned and looked into my eyes.

"Why did you leave me? Tell me the truth. It doesn't matter now, but I would like to know."

I ran my fingers through my hair, so untidy and messy now with no hair products or even a way to shampoo it. It was hard enough to shave in cold water, I only did it every three days when I couldn't stand the bristles any longer. I must look a fright.

"Bella, I was eighteen. I wasn't very mature. I wanted more to my life. Everyone was leaving Forks and going out on an adventure and I wanted to as well. If you and I had both been going to the same college, I would never have dreamed of splitting up. You were going to SeattleU and I was going to New York. It seemed so glamorous and exciting and I just wanted to experience more of life. I did know it would have been so much better with you at my side, don't get me wrong, and I did feel torn in half for weeks, missing you so badly.

I wanted to give up and go home, for the first few weeks. Then I met Tanya and sex became the focus of my existence.

I can't explain further. Boys are different. Girls want love and relationships, for that first year I wanted sex. I never loved Tanya, not at all, and she never loved me. I knew she was hoping for a permanent thing but only because she liked my bank balance. And she wanted a professional man for a husband. I actually think she is what stopped me practicing, I started to wonder how many women would see me as just a doctor, therefore a good provider moneywise. They wouldn't want me, as a person, just a doctor for a husband. Any doctor.

Not many women would consider my job at the studio as anything much.

Angela was my oasis in the desert. Only she could hold up her end of the debate against me and even beat me and teach me things. Only she ever matched you for conversation and challenge. That time, sex was pretty irrelevant, it was just something we did now and then. It wasn't intimate or meaningful, it was a means to an end, for both of us. Like we needed to do that so our brains would click back to our studies. Like eating to stay alive.

When I met Bree, I thought I could have a paler version of you and be happy enough. But of course, it's like eating tofu when you used to eat steak. It's not the same. It may have all the requirements your body needs but it just tastes bad. I tried to make her into steak but it didn't work, she was always tofu."

"Sounds like your next girl has a lot of requirements to fill then."

I shrugged.

"I suspect now I know everything I need, I will never find anyone to fulfil those things on my list."

"Sure you will. You are beautiful, even this grubby."

"I wouldn't want a girl who only wanted me because of my looks. Though sometimes I think that's all I have to offer anyway."

"We will get out, one day, won't we Edward?"

"I'm confident you will, love. I think Vicky needs you. I think she will go away somewhere as soon as the circus dies down and the cops give up, and then she will move away, all free and clear, but I truly believe she will take you with her. What I want is for you to be strong enough by then to be able to run away and leave her once that happens. You can always call on Charlie for money or a ride home, no matter how far she takes you. Or even Esme or Carlisle or Jake. They all love you, and would do anything to get you back home. Don't ever be afraid to ask them for help if the opportunity arises."

"What do you think she will do to you and Alice?" she asked, wide eyed.

"We know what she did. We know too much. Maybe she'll just leave us here, that's the obvious thing to do."

Bella sat still, and tears coursed down her cheeks.

"I couldn't bear that, Edward."

"Then maybe when you leave her, you could call somebody to come get us out. You could tell Charlie and he would send someone."

I didn't really believe Victoria would chance leaving witnesses but better Jasper knew what happened to his wife and didn't spend the rest of his life wondering and searching like he was now.

Bella nodded and reached out for me and I finally took her into the arms that ached to hold her again.

She smelt so familiar, and she felt like a piece of Heaven, though a very tiny and slim piece and I stayed there for as long as she let me.

"Hey, you should get some sleep," I finally said, standing up.

"Where do you sleep now?" she asked and I pointed to the old mattress I had dragged from the bathroom, and placed in the corner of this bedroom.

"Why?"

"Because it would be weird to share a bed with my sister, even if she did let me within ten yards of her. She still thinks I could pass on the virus. And I like to be here, close by, in case you need anything in the night."

"Don't I sleep all night?' she asked, frowning.

"Yes you do, but you talk and I like listening."

She blushed at that piece of news.

"You could sleep on that side of this bed. It's a lot more comfortable than the dog's bed on the floor."

I stilled.

"Thank you, Bella. I would like that."

"You might get the virus," she smirked.

"I don't think I'd care. Having you paint me with pink calamine, I could enjoy that," I answered, raising my eyebrows.

X~x~X

APOV

Weirdly Vicky and I chat as I work, and she seems to me to have many persona's. I have seen her relatively normal, happy, just a friend almost as I load the washing machine and clean the kitchen benches. There are two washing machines, one that works and one that's just for show. Clearly she uses it to cover all signs of the hatch when she goes out or has locked us all in for the night. It's small and compact and fits exactly inside the closet space.

She makes coffee and pours me a cup and I even sit at her small kitchen table across from her.

She is worried about Bella, even wondering if she will be left scarred from the few pox on her face, so she can be caring and she buys extra things like fruit juice boxes and tins of soup so Bella will drink and eat.

She never fails to ask me as soon as she lets me upstairs, how the girl is and if she ate and today Bella was well enough to come up for a shower and to have her hair washed, by me. It was the very first time both of us were up here together but Vicky really kept a close watch, no closed bathroom door, no whispering, we had to be open and upfront and Bella scuttled back downstairs again soon after.

She seems to be bonding a lot with Edward. I wonder if James' death will leave her needing to bond with someone else? That's fine, it's a good thing but of course, it depends on what happens to us all in the future because if this currently seemingly innocuous woman plans to kill my brother and I, then Bella faces another loss.

And she didn't handle losing Edward very well the first time around.

I've been cleaning out and reorganising every cupboard and drawer in the house, and letting Vicky think it's my OCD tendencies, in reality I'm looking for anything I can steal for Edward to make use of or any drugs I can slip into her coffee when she commands I get her a refill.

I climbed down the stairs at the end of my 'shift' laden with a tray covered in bowls of rice and curried chicken, and even dessert, cheesecake all round. Vicky placed a box of bottled water, Bella's juice boxes and nice soap and toilet paper and some pieces of fruit on the top step, when Edward stood in his doorway and spoke to her.

"Victoria, please, I'm looking after Bella and I really could be more threat to her health than she is to mine. I'm filthy. Could I please come up and have a shower? I'll walk up naked so you can see I"m not concealing anything and you can aim the gun at me the whole time. I need to be clean or I'll infect her."

I lay the tray on our little wooden table in the main room and went straight to my bedroom so she could see this wasn't some trick to jump her. To my shock, she agreed and Edward stripped off right there and went upstairs and out of our sight.

I went straight to Bella's room when the hatch door closed and sat on her bed.

"I'm so sorry I've been so ridiculous, I just hate being sick and being ill here would be so much more terrible than usual."

Bella smiled.

"I've enjoyed it. It's been eight years since Edward touched me, I can't say I'm hating it."

"And James never ever touched you?" I checked again.

"Not like that, not anywhere under my clothes. He hugged me sometimes, but only like a friend and Vicky always got mad so really, he barely touched me ever."

"See, to me, that's so strange. If I were some freak who stole girls, I would have taken them to be my sex slaves, I'm sure. I just don't understand."

It was only later that very night that I discovered the whole story.

Edward came back down, so happy to be beautiful again, he couldn't leave his damn hair alone. Even Bella laughed and teased him and he went and shook his shiny overlong locks at her. He had needed a haircut for weeks before he even got here so now his hair looked kind of girlish almost.

Bella was so relaxed in his company now.

I walked to get the paper plates to serve our meals on and Bella was chuckling and running her own hands through his hair.

I paused at the door and sincerely wished I hadn't done this, because they were gazing into one another's eyes and I just stopped their first kiss. I knew immediately that it had been about to happen and I wished the ground would swallow me up. Edward saw me there and stepped back and reached for his and Bella's plates and I shrugged and handed them over.

Then I took my own and went to bed. There was nothing else to do and I didn't want to intrude again. Maybe they would try again if I stayed in my room.

I ate then pulled out the diary and continued reading.

About an hour later I almost choked and forgot my earlier pledge to leave Edward and Bella alone.

"Edward, read this!" I said, walking in and handing him the diary.

He was lying on the bed beside Bella and she was resting her head on his chest as she read Pride and Prejudice.

He frowned.

"What the Hell? What language is this?"

"Oh shit, sorry. I don't really want to read it out loud," I explained, nodding at Bella.

"Alice, go ahead. I can take it."

"Edward?"

"Start reading just stop if I tell you to," he replied.

"Well, just to get you up to speed, Victoria and James are living together here in this house and Victoria saw a drunken backpacker in the bar and she brought her home. The girl's name was Joy and she was their first victim. She had been here a few months when this happens."

_James wanted Joy to join us in bed again so I agreed so long as he fucked me more than he did her and I got to taste her first, as usual. She cried and fought us so I had to inject her to subdue her but she was soon in the mood. Well, maybe not, but she stopped fighting us as violently and went all quiet so I started..._

"Okay, I'll spare you the details. Let's just say Vicky and James both raped her in their own ways. Vicky locked her back in the black hole and went back to bed. This is the next entry."

_Stupid bitch only went and topped herself, unbelievable. She must have taken all night filling the tub and then she somehow managed to stay underwater until she drowned. Stupid bloody bitch. Now we have to get rid of her body and start again. I think I will let James bring home that Swan girl he has been watching. She seems pretty docile and out of it and it wouldn't be hard to convince her that her Romeo is here with us and get her to walk here under her own steam._

_I think I'll take Joy to the old house and leave her there. Then James will never step out of line, not knowing where she is. He knows his semen is inside her, and he could be identified from his time in prison. This will make it so easy for me now, I'll just remind him I hold the key to his freedom if he ever gets any bright ideas of his own... _

_We will learn from this and I think James got a little too keen on Joy so I will insist he doesn't get to fuck Bella. And I was thinking, if she thought I was James' first captive, she would bond with me and I would always know what she is doing and thinking and I can back up his stories about the secret agents. We need a better title for them. Secret agents sounds too childish._

_I told him about my time under house arrest and we could use that too. Phone J when we leave the house, all that, make her believe everybody has to check in with the Higher Order officials._

_Ha, bounty hunters! That's what we can say. Hunters sounds kind of scary, and she's hardly the type of girl who will know a lot about that type of thing._

_God, I wonder how we will pass the time. James says he read it takes five years to completely take over someone using sensory deprivation. I guess if I take Joy away tonight while he goes scouting at the bar for some playmates, we can invite Miss Isabella Swan to be our guest tomorrow. Thank God I didn't let James sell the car._

Edward was very still and totally silent. Bella was crying softly, for herself or Joy, or both, who knows?

"Edward, say something."

He turned to Bella.

"How did James make you come here with him?"

"He told me you were his cousin and you had come back to marry me. Charlie was at the edge of the forest and I chose to go see you instead of going home with him. He couldn't see us."

Edward turned to face the wall and put his arm across his face at eye level. His shoulders heaved and shook and I couldn't bear watching. Bella put her arm across his torso and spooned her body behind his.

I walked back to my room, I guess we can discuss this in the morning.

X~x~X

Esme's POV

Knowing that wasn't Edward in the burned out cruiser was a massive relief but I do believe by now, everyone knows he was taken as well, or else he is ...

Nope.

He was taken.

Charlie had mounted another search of every single house in the forest bar none. He was apologetic to the residents but I know he is completely at a loss to know what else to do. Every wall and ceiling and window of every house was photographed and examined again. He's not trusting his own eyes any more. He had his men measure the outside walls then measure every room inside, to make sure nobody had any missing floorspace indicating a hidden room. Carlisle went to help but they found nothing.

I walked down the aisle of the supermarket and automatically tossed the same items into my shopping cart. We ate by rote, never tasting, merely keeping ourselves alive.

Jasper eats with us because I insist, I know that boy would just curl up and die if we let him, and we need another person at our table. Emmett and Rose try to keep our hopes alive but it's so hard on everyone. Even their twins are well behaved and sit eating quietly. I even wish they would be normal again and fight and argue and slap one another, it would remind us we are all still alive.

Rose is getting enormous with the twin boys and it's so unfair we aren't all thrilled to bits about them like we should be. Emmett wants to name one of them after Edward but he isn't game to voice it out loud in case we think it's because he thinks his brother is dead. We know it's not that, he just wants the name to carry on.

Josh is growing and starting to chatter and say the occasional word but he nearly killed us all when he started babbling "mamamama" the other night and we didn't finish that meal.

People are generally kind and ask me if there's any news, like it wouldn't be around town in a minute if there was, and a few avoid me. I see them suddenly need to pop into the nearest shop as I walk down the street. It's sad, it's like they fear having your children disappear may be contagious and they can't risk catching it.

Victoria, with her amazing mop of strawberry blond hair, is here again today , shopping cart full, as always. Charlie has some friend dating her in case she ever slips up, he's aiming for her to spill something in pillowtalk I suspect. He used to trust she was innocent but not now, not since James' body was found and he had been shot. Now he knows someone did that, and it must have been someone James' trusted, to get shot at such close range.

I think we all hoped if he did hold Bella and our two, that one of them would have done it, but they'd be free if that were the case.

I stand behind her in line and watch her pile out the groceries.

My heart stills suddenly and I have to fake a smile.

"Hello dear," I mutter in reply to her greeting and shift from one foot to the other, impatiently.

I've shopped here every week, I've been behind her often, and I've never noticed before?

Finally she is done and her groceries are bagged and taken to her car and thrust my creditcard through the machine and tell Jessica I will be back, just leave everything bagged in my cart.

Victoria's car is gone so I race to my own and head straight to the police station.

"Charlie, get a tail on Victoria, she was at the supermarket just now. Get an all points bulletin out on her. Just find out where she is going, don't stop her."

He does it immediately then asks questions.

"What's going on?"

"She buys too much food," I cry.

"Esme, there's no law against gluttony," Charlie says, taking his cap off and scratching his head.

"No, listen. She is always in the supermarket buying food. She supposedly lives alone and goes out three or four nights a week to dinner with your Jason friend. Why does she need so much food? She would be twenty stone if she ate it all. She is buying for a group of people. I saw what she had. She's feeding a family of four adults. She has the kids and Bella. Don't you see?"

"But how? Where?" he answers.

He picks up his radio and listens to the report.

"She went to her house. She's inside."

"Show me the photos," I plead and he spreads out the ones from her file on his desk.

"There. That," I cry in triumph.

"She has a second washing machine. People do. Maybe the one in the laundry room is broken."

"Charlie, this one is in a closet."

"So?"

"Where's the plumbing?"

"What?"

"Why would you keep a washing machine in a closet? You can't use it there. I bet she's covering up something. There's a secret door behind it or...is it possible she has a wine cellar?"

"I guess we go find out. Esme, we know if she has them, we can't just break in. She killed James, I'm sure, and she will kill them if she sees us coming. It has to be just me in front and the others will have to hold back and wait for my signal. I'll try and talk her into letting me inside then I'll grab the bitch and possibly punch her out. I'm about to retire anyway. If we are wrong, then there goes my pension but I can't let this possibility pass by."

X~x~X

Bella's POV

"Bella, back on duty, you look fine to me. Come put the groceries away," Vicky ordered and I walked upstairs and started stacking tins on tins and packets besides packets. Alice has completely redone the pantry and it's now all organised.

I was quickly putting vegetables in the crisper section of the fridge when I heard something.

A car.

I needed to distract Vicky.

"Oops," I gasped as I 'accidentally' knocked the coffeepot all over her dress. It clattered on the floor and shattered, steam rising and brown liquid spreading in a puddle.

"Idiot! God, not only did you fucking scold me but this will fucking stain and it's my favorite dress, you had better find a way to get every single mark out," she growled and went into the bathroom. "Clean that mess up now."

As soon as she bent over and had the dress half over her head, I slammed the bathroom door shut and turned the key. It's always on the outside because she locks us in when we wash upstairs.

"Bella, open this door now!" she screamed and I turned and walked to the front door, unlocking the deadbolt.

As I opened it, I saw a white car outside and I walked out towards it and raised my hand and waved.


	12. Chapter 12

This story would be so much better if I had a beta. I have one reviewer who knows exactly all the bits I left out, tell me how to make her be my beta...what should I use for bribes? Maybe I should send her Sexward from Row 61, everyone wanted a visit from him when I wrote that story!

IF this shows, I've uploaded it the cheats way because ff is not working yet again!

As If I Never Existed  
>Chapter 12<br>Charlie's POV

Walking toward me was a slim girl, not much older than a teenager, with weirdly dyed hair. White blond but with a wide streak of brown regrowth. Despite the fact she looked quite harmless, I still kept my hand on my sidearm. We met in the middle of the yard.  
>"Hello Dad," she said softly and I stopped and gaped at her.<br>"Bella?"  
>She smiled and her eyes shone and her lips I suddenly realised, where really her lips. Bella's lips have always been different. Slightly uneven. The top lip doesn't quite match the bottom lip. It was her. It didn't matter than the thin little body was wrong, and the long auburn hair was gone.<br>I stuttered something meaningless and grabbed on to her and squeezed her tight, my heart beating out of control. Eight years, eight long horrible frustrating years.  
>I'm a cop and have been all my adult life and I couldn't find my own child. That's like being a doctor and watching your own child suffer and you can't do anything to help it.<br>Only for me, I never knew if she was alive in this world or only in my heart.  
>Bella broke away and stood back a little and I felt desolated.<br>"Come on, Vicky may just break the door down, we have to get the others out. Edward and Alice, they are in the basement. Dad, come on, we can't waste time, she's tricked us before."  
>She took my hand and led me into the house.<br>Vicky was clearly in the bathroom and was belting the door and screaming profanities that would be fitting for any trucker. The threats she screamed at Bella were horrendous but my daughter ignored them completely and emptied a woman's purse out onto the table and grabbed a set of keys.  
>"She always keeps everything important in this bag, it's her automatic response. She locks the trapdoor then tosses the keys in here."<br>The washing machine was in the center of the room now, Esme had been right. Bella smiled at me and knelt on the floor in the closet and opened a hatch.

Edward's POV  
>The sound of the hatch opening again brought me to my bedroom doorway and I held the top of the doorframe and watched Bella walk down towards me. She held out her hands and I took them, and only then did I realise Charlie Swan was peering down at us.<br>"I waved, Edward. I saw a white car and I waved."  
>"Good girl, Bella! You did the right thing. Now we can all go home again."<br>I kissed the top of her head and she blushed and looked me in the eyes.  
>"You saved us,love," I assured her.<br>I tapped on Alice's door and opened it. She was immersed in the diary and looked up irritably.  
>"Going to keep reading or are you coming with us? Fancy a visit to see Jasper and Josh?" I asked casually.<br>Alice had held it together for so long, I guess the shock of finally being free had to affect her.  
>She ran for the stairs and Charlie held out a hand and pulled her up and Bella and I walked hand in hand and followed.<br>"I'll get an ambulance," Charlie said and went to lift his daughter up into his arms to carry her.  
>"Charlie, she needs to walk outside with me. Just give us a moment, it's important."<br>He nodded and Bella and I walked out into the gentle rain of Forks and she held her face to the sky and let the raindrops dampen her cheeks and hair.  
>"We're free, Edward," she said excitedly.<br>I wasn't fool enough to think this was over and she would be able to cope without a lot of help but I lifted her into my own arms and kissed her for the first time in eight years. She kissed me back and time truly stood still. My mind, tired and weary and battered as it was, was filled with her aroma and her taste and her happiness.  
>As we ended it, Charlie held out his arms and I handed him his daughter.<br>"Thank you, Edward."  
>"Hey Charlie, I did nothing. Our Bella saved us all, make no mistake. She gathered her strength from somewhere deep inside and saved us all."<br>"Victoria was going to leave you behind, you and Alice," she replied, as if that explained everything.  
>"Well Vicky can't hurt us again now, I imagine she will be soon sampling the joys of prison life for a very long time."<br>Somehow Esme was there, holding Alice and both were bawling loudly and my Mom opened an arm and I let her pull me into the threeway embrace.  
>Cars were everywhere, police suddenly swarmed and ran to the house and it was done, just like that.<br>Charlie put his daughter inside the ambulance and I was about to insist going with her when he climbed inside himself and sat there, holding her hand. He'd waited eight years for this.  
>"You're in charge, Tom. Don't rough Victoria up too much unless you have to, of course, to subdue her," he growled and the driver shut the doors and climbed inside and took Bella away.<br>"Okay, I guess you folks need to go to the hospital too and get checked out, and then I will need statements," Tom said.  
>"No problem," I said, shaking the hand he offered.<br>"So, it was down to Bella in the end?"  
>"It was, she was extraordinarily brave to do this, after what they did to her and Victoria shot James in front of her so she knew what she was risking if she mucked it up. There's a diary downstairs but it's written in Russian, you will need to get it translated. It's going to be important evidence."<br>"Thanks, Edward. Good to see you out and free again."  
>"Good to breathe the fresh damp air of Forks," I replied.<br>Carlisle was with Bella when we got to the hospital but he broke away and came to hug Alice and I and assure us we would be next, he wanted to check us over himself. Jasper rushed through the door minutes later and Alice screamed with joy and grabbed Josh from his arms and they squashed the toddler between them, making him kick and yell.  
>Esme rescued him and jiggled him up and down on her hip.<br>"Look Josh, it's Mama."  
>Jasper's lips were attached to my sister's and his arms were holding her like a vice and he kept pulling back just to check it was indeed Alice, then he would kiss her again.<br>Josh was watching, puzzled and finally he smiled.  
>"Mama."<br>Alice turned and smiled and took her son into her arms, tears pouring down her face.  
>"He's so big, what were you feeding him? Did Daddy dress you in this outfit Josh? Green and purple together, Jasper? I can see you two boys need me very much."<br>"Oh we do, we do," Jasper cried and wiped his own eyes unashamedly.  
>Carlisle admitted Bella as a precaution and had her put in a private room with restricted visitors, or else everyone in Forks would be streaming through. Many would be genuinely just wanting to see for themselves she was all right but there would be the ones who just wanted to look.<br>A reporter shoved a microphone in my face and started asking questions but I pushed past and went straight to my father and pulled him aside.  
>"Don't go admitting her to a psych ward, Dad. I know she needs help but she needs people who love her around. She's made great strides already. Just opening that door and walking out to Charlie was a miracle after the crap James and Victoria hypnotised her into believing. I have to see her and reassure her she did really well. She's gotten used to me, don't cut me off from her because I will simply climb in the window if that's the only way to get in to see her."<br>Dad patted my back.  
>"Just give her time to get showered and changed and settled. She's very thin, Edward, and I see she's just had chicken pox."<br>"Yeah, but she came through them just fine. No infections."  
>"She told me what you did. Well done. Maybe you will consider being a doctor now."<br>I shrugged.  
>"Sure. I was confident I'd get her through it and she will always be my most important patient. If I can treat her, I can treat anyone."<br>"What's your game plan? Are you going to reconcile with her?"  
>"I'm going to be whatever she needs me to be. She can have as little or as much as she wants. It's all up to her, now, Dad. I left her in such a bad state she lost eight years of her life. I can't give her those years back. All I can do is be here if she needs me."<br>He smiled.  
>"I like the hair, is it the haystack look? Might catch on," he laughed. "Or do you want a ribbon to tie it back?"<br>I knew this was just relief talking, he had been so stressed clearly, he was barely holding it together himself. I knew him well, possibly better even than Esme did. These wisecracks were saved for times he was de-stressing madly.  
>"Make it a pink ribbon, Dad. Thanks."<br>I ran my fingers through my hair and headed towards Bella's door. It was open and I could hear voices.  
>"Where have you been, loca? Just like you to hide away to get out of our date. You lost all that ugly fat you were carrying then?"<br>Jacob Black was here.  
>X~x~X<p>

I waited patiently, then let Esme lead me away when it became obvious Bella was going to be overwhelmed with visitors today. Renee was coming, with Phil and their three children, Jake and Charlie had not left her side for a moment, and Billy Black and some of the Quileute elders were now waiting to speak to her. Billy assured me their shaman would help her heal and I was open to anything myself, I just hope everyone else would be too.  
>"Come on, you need to come home and relax, have a hot bath and a proper meal and get into some of your own clothes," Mom added, raising an eyebrow at my attire. Honestly, the women in our family are just too interested in fashion.<br>Lucky we managed to survive long enough to get into decent clothing.  
>The lure of a long hot bath, the focus of many of my dreams, soon became a reality and I lay back and just luxuriated in the warmth. I swear I will never take hot water for granted again.<br>Tom came around and took statements from Alice and I and told us how Esme had solved the case, and what Bella had said in her own statement.  
>It must have been so hard for her, white cruiser and all, but she did it and Charlie said she showed no hesitation at all. I was immensely proud of her.<br>"Is there still a crowd of people in her room?" I asked him as he left.  
>"The Chief is quitting the moment this case is officially wrapped up, and that's a good thing, I don't think we will be able to pry him from her side for weeks yet. Jacob was still there when I left, but Charlie decided she has had all the visitors she can handle for now and Renee will be here by nightfall so Bella has to get some rest now, while she can."<br>I nodded and wondered when there would be room for me.  
>When Carlisle got home, he told with us that he had permission from Bella to share all her medical information as she wanted to make sure we knew she was well enough, just needed some vitamin D from the lack of sunlight and obviously she needed building up again. She would be released in a day or two if they didn't find any further reason to keep her but her psych evaluation the next day may alter that.<br>I was worried about that, but didn't see how locking her up in a hospital would help. She needed to get back outside in the real world a little at a time with people she trusted to keep her safe above anything else.  
>I was lying in my childhood bedroom in the bed Bella and I alone had often shared, and was thinking about how she would be now, when Charlie arrived and requested my presence at the hospital.<br>Bella couldn't sleep alone, she was too tense to shut her eyes and she had asked for me to come and sit with her.  
>X~x~X<br>I opened the door and smiled at Bella, who was sitting on the side of the bed, rocking back and forth.  
>"Hey, bedmate, which side do I get?" I asked and she flew into my arms. I kicked off my shoes and kissed her quickly on the lips.<br>She was shaking all over, I guess we all have to get the initial reaction bit over with before we can move on.  
>"I can't close my eyes, I keep seeing things."<br>"It's okay, I can stay all night if you want," I answered, pulling off my jeans and Tshirt and getting into her bed in my boxers and taking her with me. She hesitated a moment then took off the hospital gown and lay in my arms in just her little blue panties. She needed body contact, skin on skin. Like a newborn, she wanted the reassurance someone was right there with her.  
>"So, where's the first place you want to go when you feel like an adventure outside?" I asked.<br>"The beach. Or your house. I want to see your house."  
>"Okay, I'm sure my Mom cleaned it up. It's a very cute cottage, I think you will love it."<br>"I loved it when it was just a shell, remember?" she said. I nodded, we had often walked down there, through the old crumbling walls that were all that was left standing back in those days.  
>Bella had taken a lot of photos of it, at dawn, at sunset, she loved the way the light hit the old stones it had been built with. They had been taken from the creek that ran along the border of Carlisle's property and although they were mainly cream in color, they had chips dotted here and there that shone and reflected the sunlight, splitting the colors like rainbows.<br>She saw beauty in everything.  
>"You know, I meant what I said about you having the meadow. I'm getting Carlisle to arrange a change in title so it's all yours."<br>"Edward, I can't take that, you said it's worth a fortune."  
>"Okay fine, I'll sell it and let strangers come and build a resort and destroy the forest, that would be better."<br>She growled and I laughed at her so called threatening face.  
>"Then just accept it in the spirit it's given and maybe the builders could use river stones to build your cottage. I can give you some tips. Make the doorways higher and the sitting room bigger and I always thought a spa bath in a bay window in the downstairs bathroom would be nice. Sitting in the bath looking out at the forest, the deer looking in at you? Nice."<br>"And the bears, wondering what flavor you are," she suggested.  
>I was actually glad she was thinking bears were the worst thing out there because I think most girls who survived what she did would be imagining more human predators. I'm sure for a while she will see every stranger as a threat but so long as someone is always with her for a while, I think she will be okay.<br>Putting her in a hospital setting and filling her with drugs should be a last resort. Surely they have doctors or psychiatrists trained in deprogramming? They do for cult escapees, they must for hostages.  
>If she found a doctor like that she could trust and just listened to his voice of reason, she may well prove to be stronger than everyone thinks.<br>Attacking Vicky had been very courageous but possibly easier than the walk outside.  
>She had trusted I was speaking the truth and that the man in the white car would not come and kill her, as she had been trained to think, and that was massive in itself. Imagine if something you were taught for years by someone you trusted suddenly proved to be untrue? It's not easy to just accept it.<br>If you were eight and someone said "Hey, your father is not your real dad" you wouldn't just say "oh fine then, thanks for that."  
>She needed time to see the real world as it is. No Government officials having to be informed of your every outing, no threat from white vehicles.<br>Bella cuddled down beside me and was asleep in minutes. I lay there in the dark and felt her heartbeat change to a slower, more even pace and smoothed the hair from off her face.  
>She was beautiful, even with the reverse skunk hair and the faint pink marks from the chicken pox. She really didn't look any older than she did at High School,she had a perpetual seventeen year old face.<br>Renee snuck in later in the night, and whispered a greeting.  
>"I just had to make sure she was here. She was very emotional before, it was too much, everyone wanting to see her at once. Thanks for waiting, Edward. Thank you for looking after her in there."<br>"She looked after me, too. We all helped one another. We all were hostages, so we tended to stick together and depend on one another."  
>"Yes," she smirked,"I'm sure that was all it was. You still love her," she suddenly added.<br>I shrugged and nodded.  
>"I guess deep down I always did but being back in her presence...what was I thinking? You can't leave yourself yet I left part of me behind when I left her. I finally feel like one day I may be a whole person again."<br>"You will be," she agreed."Goodnight, sleep well, and look after our girl, Edward. She belongs to all of us. Charlie, me, and you."  
>"And Jake," I added.<br>"She will never choose him over you. She didn't choose him even when you were no longer a choice. She does loves him but he has only ever had the smaller part of her heart."  
>"Maybe it will be enough for her now," I suggested. "He could well be the better choice for her, you know."<br>"Edward, you can't tell your heart who to love. It chooses for itself and her heart chose long ago. Don't fuck it up this time, son."  
>I couldn't help laughing. Renee has always been so prim and proper, I had been shocked by Bella's tale about the reason behind the eldest boy's names. I had never seen that Renee. Maybe a little of her was in this room now. The real her without the mask of complete respectability.<br>She closed the door behind her after kissing Bella's forehead. I added my own kiss in the darkness and let myself sleep, for once without an ear open in case the lock didn't click.  
>X~x~X<br>Morning and it was back to the real world where my presence wasn't required or wanted. Bella didn't seem keen for me to go but her visitors started straight after breakfast so I ate with her then left, promising to be back that night if she needed me.  
>She tried to protest but Emmett and Rose had snuck in for a quick visit and they insisted on taking me back to the house with them, as Esme had the twins in her care and we could hang out together for a while.<br>Emmett surprised me when he told me about the new twins inside being boys and that he was naming one for me. Rose wanted to name the other twin Eamon and they sounded okay together.  
>Edward and Eamon.<br>They were big and active and she was already rethinking how many more times she would be willing to go through this.  
>"Emmett, if we could just produce them one at a time, it would be so much easier."<br>"Not my fault I'm ultra fertile," Emmett crowed.  
>Hermione and Honoria were both back to their usual boisterous selves, Mom told me how subdued they had been when we were missing, but I couldn't imagine these two ever sitting nicely and eating properly at a table, they were Emmett's children.<br>"So, you and Bella..." Rose asked.  
>"Well, we are friends again. Whether it can be more remains to be seen. I inadvertently caused her to be the one they took. If she hadn't been so shattered, she would have never been in the forest."<br>"I think it was down to more people than you. Charlie knew the types that live in those huts in there, what the Hell was he thinking?"  
>"He had to work, Emmett, he couldn't babysit her every minute."<br>"Rubbish, if she was that bad, why wasn't she hospitalised then? Sounds to me like she had a breakdown and shouldn't have been out there alone anyway. And don't forget, you never told James to take her, Vicky did. There's a lot of responsibility to be shared around, you are not taking all the blame."  
>"She went with him because he told her I was back and I wanted to marry her. She chose to go to me, as she thought, instead of going to Charlie."<br>"Course, she always loved you, why wouldn't she? Her choice. She just didn't know what the real choices were. She wouldn't have gone had he said 'go to Charlie or come live in a box for five years then be my slave', now would she."  
>"She used to be so upbeat and happy and confident," I sighed.<br>"And she will be again. Give her time."  
>X~x~X<br>The psychiatrist was of two minds about how to treat Bella. She was making progress but he didn't like her night time dependency on me and refused to discharge her until she was sleeping alone. He wanted to sedate her at night until she got used to an empty side of her bed.  
>Renee objected loudly and made a suggestion of her own.<br>"Why doesn't she sleep at Edward's house then? He has a house of his own, he only works by day, right, Carlisle?"  
>"I can arrange for Edward to do the day shifts," Dad agreed. I had only been working there one week and already I was getting special favors but as it was for Bella and not me, I took it.<br>The cottage is tiny and only ever intended for guests but whatever, we can handle that, we'd lived together in a smaller space.  
>And this place had windows and doors that led outside.<br>Bella showed no fear of the forest and I sometimes found her up before I awoke, wandering amongst the trees, always within sight but it bothered me that she wasn't afraid.  
>"What are the chances there's another predator out there? Been there, done that. Edward, think about it. Either I get Charlie to lock me in a cell with four officers guarding me to make me feel safe or I face up to the world and know I put myself in a place of danger. I contributed to my being taken. I had no business being in that past of the forest. This," she waved a hand " is all Cullen owned. Nobody comes here except your family and it's fenced and has no hiking trails through it., I'm safe. I would never go in deep without you."<br>"Okay, sorry," I said, kissing her gently.  
>She accepted my kissing her and always cuddled up to me at night but she would be the one making any further moves. I had no real idea whether she liked me again as more than a friend or whether it was residual emotional bonds because of the situation. She had to bond with Alice and I in there, there was nobody else. Out here, she had a hundred choices.<br>"Come on, what are you doing today?" I asked, pulling her to the tiny kitchen, meant merely for coffee making and quick snacks but we managed to cook proper meals the nights we didn't eat with Carlisle and Esme. Or Charlie, Renee and Phil, or Emmett and Rose, or finally, even Alice was inviting guests to her house again.  
>I think she and Jasper had needed the last few weeks to get to the point where they felt safe again and could bear to share their time with others.<br>Josh was back to his old routine with his mother again and Jasper was returning to work.  
>"I'm going to Charlie's to see Mom and the kids for a bit but what time are you finishing?"<br>Dad had me doing the easy shifts and was always willing to let me have a personal day or just a few hours off if needed. I think his attitude had changed.  
>He no longer saw work as the be all and end all and he didn't want me to either. We none of us have any idea of what the future holds, we have to make memories and really live while we have that opportunity.<br>"I can leave anytime, what do you have in mind?"  
>"Well, you did insist on signing the meadow over to me, I want us to go visit it. Together."<br>You could see the trees that surrounded the meadow from this window but I knew she meant more than just walking over and looking about. Maybe she wanted to talk and liked the idea of doing it there. We hadn't really discussed what we were now, or what we could be one day.  
>"How about a late lunch? I could grab something to eat and bring it home around two."<br>"Then I could make us a picnic instead. Just come get me from Dad's okay?"  
>I promised to be there and thought no more about it until about one o'clock then the thoughts filtered through my mind chaotically. It could be good news, very good news. She could want us back, as in, the real us. The us that were everything, but she could want to draw the line in the sand and make sure I knew we were friends this time around and nothing more.<br>I seemed to be searching for signs from that point on, replaying every conversation over in my head and was a nervous mess by the time I changed my clothes and picked her up.  
>The drive was silent, but not tense, not from Bella, anyway.<br>I was a mess inside but was holding together the outside and opened the door for her, and carried the basket and blanket to the far edge of the meadow and set us up under the largest tree.  
>Bella served out salads and cold chicken and bread rolls and we drank lemonade like some old fashioned courting couple but I couldn't face a beer at this point.<br>As she repacked the leftovers, I walked to the stream and tossed a coin inside and made a wish.  
>I wished I would be able to handle whatever she had decided.<br>She walked over and stood beside me.  
>"We need to talk," she said and my stomach dropped. Does any good news ever start like that?<br>"Sure, okay, what about?"  
>"Us. Is there an us, Edward?"<br>"I think so. Don't you?"  
>"I know we are friends again and I know you are helping me but I just wonder if it's all out of guilt."<br>"No," I immediately denied. "Not guilt. I may have given you this meadow half out of guilt, like, compensation, but that was to ease my own mind, and I truly couldn't live here alone."  
>"You could live here with somebody else," she suggested.<br>"Nope," I said. "I tried a few 'someone else's' and it didn't turn out that well for me. I don't intend going back to that again. Not for a long time, anyway. Maybe eventually, years down the track, out of sheer loneliness and desperation. I'm happy, Bella, just being here for you as long as you need me."  
>"What if that's a really long time?" she asked.<br>I shrugged.  
>"I just said, I have no plans. I am available to you for the foreseeable future."<br>"What if I want more than just your help and friendship?" she asked shyly.  
>I turned to face her and put my hands on her shoulders.<br>"I will be whatever you want me to be."  
>"Oh yay!" she said, giggling like a schoolgirl."I have a boyfriend."<br>"Truly?" I asked.  
>"Only if you still kiss and...do other things as well as you used to. Though maybe your lady friends taught you some new stuff."<br>I blanched at what Tanya had taught me, I could be sure we would never do any of that weirdness. Angela taught me sex was not everything and had it's place but certainly it had never been the highlight.  
>Bree had taught me you can't take a lookalike and make love to her pretending she is someone else.<br>"All they taught me was I made a colossal mistake," I told her honestly enough.  
>"Want to make another one?" she asked and took the basket from the blanket and lay down.<br>I wasn't even going to puzzle out what she meant, I was there instantly and felt the tightness in my jeans.  
>"What's going on?" I asked as she started undoing my shirt.<br>"I'm ready, are you?" she replied.  
>She placed a hand over my crotch and smirked.<br>"I think you are."  
>"Bella, I don't have a condom, I wasn't expecting this."<br>"The best picnics are always followed by dessert, you used to say that. Have you forgotten?"  
>This wasn't helping, I'd have an imprint of the zip permanently on my dick if she kept this up.<br>"Bella, we don't have a condom."  
>"I'm safely on the Pill. Funny thing, it was about the first thing your father offered me, like he knew it was going to be needed."<br>"Is it...are you..safe yet? How long?"  
>"It's safe," she answered and that kind of opened the floodgate. Our first time had been nought to a hundred in ten seconds, and it appeared this new first time would be no different.<br>My jeans were half mast and my boxers with them and Bella didn't even bother taking her skirt off. She tossed her blouse and bra on the grass and slid herself down onto me and started moving and pushing her body, raising and lowering it, grinding against me. I truly hadn't seen this coming, not yet anyway. She had never made a single move in bed at night, I kind of expected our first time would be there.  
>Not that I am complaining. Her breasts were right there, above me and I reached up to take one into my lips and she smiled down at me and that was pretty much how we passed the rest of the afternoon.<br>Reconnecting.  
>I was delirious with happiness, this was a dream come true.<br>Spooning her body in front of mine, finally sated, we both fell asleep and only awoke to the sound of Emmett's voice as he came from the main house, looking for us.  
>"Oh yeah, nice one, bro," he said as he found us. I was hurriedly getting the blanket edge pulled up and folded over my naked girl and he stood there, watching.<br>"Go away, Emmett, we will be right there. I didn't realise the time."  
>"Well, dinner's getting cold and Esme's getting colder, hurry up. I'll tell her you two need to shower and change and wash the wildflowers off your arses, shall I?"<br>"Please do," Bella answered.


	13. Chapter 13

**Hiya, this is not edited yet, please overlook typoes. (NO beta, remember).We have a 3 day weekend and I have a 7 year old boy to entertain so see you Monday.**

As If I Never existed

Chapter 13

EPOV

I have no excuse for not noticing earlier, all I can say in my own defence is, I am a man and a man who had been deprived of sex for a while. It seemed like a very long while to me, you may think differently. Months to a man probably equal years to a woman.

I was enthusiastically accepting all the opportunities to make love that Bella offered, so we were going at it morning and night, midnight, and often in my lunch hour when she would come to the hospital and drag me off to an on call room.

My head was always in a state of euphoria until one of the other doctors, Grant, started complaining how once you got into a relationship, the sex halved, or dropped by 90% I think were his actual words. I shrugged and grinned in reply and he raised an eyebrow.

"Wait, do you live with Bella? Truly? Because I thought all those nooners were her ploy to get you to move in with her. The old 'look how much sex we could have IF ONLY we lived together' line that never comes true. You start playing house and suddenly she is too tired, has a headache, suddenly doesn't like doing it during her monthlies after all, and the oral is just a memory. How long have you two been playing house?"

Hmm, six months?" I guessed. "What's the date?"

"Ooh don't forget the date, you had better not miss the half anniversary or lunchtime will turn into a sandwich and a Coke in the lunchroom with the rest of us."

Bella wasn't like that, she never referred to how much time had passed since we got together properly as a couple. The sex had not lessened at all, not the oral or the times she was bleeding, nothing had changed.

I knew I was lucky and that was as far as I thought about it. I found my mind tended to be a lot clearer at work as a result because I was never angsting over when the next encounter would happen, I knew.

Lunchtime, or if afternoon, tonight after dinner.

She never refused me in fact thinking about it, I didn't actually initiate sex any more, she just assumed we would do it and took charge.

One of the nurses,Claire, was sympathising with Grant and implying she would be happy to pick up the slack for him when he said something that made me stop and think.

"Don't even ask Edward about his sex life, he gets more than I did back in the days when I was paying hookers."

When I compared my sex life now compared to Tanya, the nearest I'd ever been to using a hooker, it was strange. I was actually having more sex with Bella.

I dismissed it at first, we were in love, we had been apart eight years, this was normal catch up sex. Had we been together for those eight years, maybe things would be different by now but we were new to one another in every way that counted. And we were kids back then, a single encounter was like the highlight of my life. I had not had sex with anyone else before Bella so the frequency had revolved around opportunity and now we had endless opportunities, we were just using them.

"She's not trying to conceive, is she Edward? I know when we decided to have our first baby, we never let an opportunity for conception pass us by," Claire asked.

I considered her words.

"No, I don't think so. We aren't at that point yet."

"YOU aren't at that point yet, she may be," Claire laughed. "We women know you men would put off starting a family forever if you could, you are all happy with a housekeeper and confidant and lover, you are never in a hurry for the responsibility of children. Sometimes we have to take matters into our own hands."

Was that what Bella was doing? I wasn't greatly concerned if she got pregnant, as far as I was concerned we were a forever couple anyway and kids would be part of that at some point but we hadn't discussed any timeline and I admittedly, would like some more years of just us. I take time to warm up to taking responsibility, it is my greatest flaw.

Every other medical student in my class went straight into practice in some form or another, I went and worked as a gofer for a movie studio.

Emmett and Jasper knew their girls were their soul mates and continued into real relationships and marriage, I took a break and went off to play in other pastures before returning to my own.

That evening after dinner, Bella and I sat down to watch a dvd I had been waiting to see, and she started sliding her hands inside my sleep pants minutes after the movie began.

"Hey, love, let's watch this first, we have all night for other things," I said gently, taking her hands and kissing her fingers.

She looked both shocked and frightened.

"What, Bella? We will make love, I just want to see this first, is that okay?"

I kissed the top of her head and pulled her in close to my side, and pulled the rug off the back of the sofa over us.

"I could just do something to you, would you like that? Should I use my hands or my mouth.."

"Bella, it's fine. Let's just wait and watch the movie first."

She seems spooked at the idea.

I watched the film but she fretted and her hands drifted often and I had to slow her down and ended up entwining our fingers so she couldn't touch me.

Maybe Claire was right, maybe she was ovulating and didn't want to miss tonight for a reason.

When it was over, I locked up the cottage and took her to bed and she frantically started pawing at my erection and pulling her own sleep pants off.

"Bella, is there a reason you are so anxious?" I asked.

'We need to do this, now," she answered.

"Why? We have all night."

"But you do like making love with me, don't you?" she asked, her eyes wide with terror.

"Bella, I love you and I love making love with you but you don't need to be so frantic. What's up?"

"I just need you to need me," she answered, lowering her face to my erection.

"Hey," I said, pulling her back. "I do need you, I will always need you. You don't have to have sex with me constantly."

"If I don't, you will leave me again. You left me so you could go find a girl like Tanya. We have to have sex as often as you did with her."

"Bella,love, I don't want the same type of relationship with you that I had with her. It was just sex, nothing more. It was meaningless and we didn't connect. I want everything with you. The whole package."

She immediately reached into the drawer beside the bed and pulled out a tube of lube and handed it to me then rolled away, offering me her backside.

"You can do that, I won't cry this time," she promised.

"Bella. Listen to me, we tried that once long ago and decided we didn't like it. I don't want to do that to you. It's not necessary, I prefer facing you and looking into your eyes when I'm inside you."

"You did that to her," she stated.

"I did a lot of things to her that I would never do to you."

"Why not? Why aren't I good enough, Edward?"

"Bella, baby, it's nothing like that. Tanya was a woman of the world, she had been with a lot of men before me, she just had a very broad repertoire of tricks, but she wasn't like you. I didn't care about her so she had to offer plenty of moves to keep me coming back. I love you, even if we never made love I would still want to be with you."

Clearly that was the worst thing to say and she burst into tears.

"You don't want me that way."

"Baby, I do want to make love to you but I want us to enjoy it and only do it when we both want to. And I want it to be meaningful and loving and a way of connecting, not a fuck."

"I don't understand, Edward. You left me because the sex was bad for you. It wasn't enough. I don't want that to happen again."

"The sex we shared back then was awesome, Bella. I loved being with you."

"Just not enough to stay."

"Baby, I had to go away, I had to go to NYU, and you were going to go to SeattleU. If we had gone to the same college, we would have shared a place together and fallen even more in love and gotten married like Emmett and Rose and Jasper and Alice. It was circumstances, it wasn't anything you did or didn't do. I certainly did not leave you because of backdoor sex."

"But you did it with Tanya. So you must have liked it."

I had no idea how to explain. Tanya was just sex personified, that's all she was. A living breathing sex toy. Of course I used her in every way she offered. It would have been boring if we'd stuck to three or four things, we needed variety to keep me even slightly interested in her. Had she had fewer games to play we would have split a lot earlier.

"I don't know how to explain. Even girls sometimes go with a boy just because of sex. If they aren't looking for a life partner, then they sometimes choose to be with some man they may not even like much, just because he's good in the sack. They know it won't last but they have some fun then move on to another man they have things in common with and want to talk to. I never talked to Tanya. That's why I went to Angela. Then I left Angela because she and I were not suited either. Angela and I had very little sex together really and it was pretty restricted, she wasn't into acrobatics like Tanya, but that wasn't why we split. We knew we were not meant to be. We lacked the passion and spark. Same with Bree. I was only attracted to her because the first time I saw her across the road, I thought it was you. I chased after her and grabbed her shoulder and when she turned around, I almost walked away. But then, I figured you had gone away and started a new life for yourself and may not ever come back, so I tried to use Bree to be you. It didn't work. It was always you, Bella.

I came back to Forks every single Christmas and you were never here. I went to visit Charlie, I left a gift under your tree for you, but you were never there. I had no idea you had been taken. I thought you stayed away because you were happy wherever you were."

"I wanted to come home, Edward but James wouldn't let me," she said tearfully.

"I know that now, love. I know it wasn't your choice not to come home."

"I don't know what to do, Edward. How can I make you stay?"

"I'm not going anywhere. I love you and we are meant to be. We have the spark, Bella. We have the connection. Do you ever feel this with anyone else?"

She shook her head.

"Jake tried to be something with you, I know, how was it with him?"

She shook her head.

"Jake is my friend."

"So, it's something special to only you and I. It's the universe's way of telling us we were made for one another."

She stared into my eyes.

"Just tell me one thing, love, I won't be angry. Are you trying to get pregnant? Are you thinking if we had a baby it would make me stay?"

She pulled away and sat up.

"We can't have babies, Edward, not ever."

"Bella, we aren't ready yet but one day.."

"No," she said, shaking her head determinedly.

"Why not, love? You might change your mind.."

"No, Edward. What if Victoria came back? She said if we had babies she would come and take them and put them in A Box."

X~x~X

"So, what do you think, Dad? How do I prove to her I am staying forever this time? And what the Hell do I do about Victoria? Bella seems like she is coping and handling things but sometimes it all falls down. Emmett came over the other night after dinner and brought some beers, and the girls sat in the kitchen and talked and he and I had a few drinks and they left. Later in the night, I had to go pee and when I got back, Bella was in the corner, shaking. I never usually leave the bed in the night. She can't sleep in total darkness which is understandable and not a problem, I don't mind a nightlight on. But to go back to hiding in a corner after all this time?"

"Why didn't you call me?"

"I was going to, but as soon as I came back, she let me take her into bed and she..."

"What?"

"She uses sex as comfort, sometimes, Carlisle. It helps her calm down and know I'm there for her. It's getting out of hand, actually. You know she comes here every lunchtime? It's like if we don't have sex four time a day minimum she is convinced I'll leave her for someone else. I don't know what to do for her."

"The whole aim with what James did was to make her be dependant on him, she's transferred that dependency to you but she fears a repeat of the past. She needs time to learn to trust you again. It's something you need to consider, Edward."

"What?"

"If you are serious about staying with Bella forever, then you have to accept we may never be able to 'fix' her completely. She may always be needy and dependant on you."

"I can handle that, I just want her to feel better. I want Bella to love being alive and to embrace every day. I want her to be happy and I will do whatever that takes. She's got a second chance to live.

We can't have kids? Fine. It's always been Bella that I wanted so I'm hardly going to complain if I am lucky enough to get her. Children are a bonus, not a necessity."

"She wants kids, Edward. She just 'knows' they will be taken so she won't have them. It's a response a child would give. She's very immature due to the years she missed. She needs more than we are offering her.

You know what? I think she needs to go to college, and start from where she left off."

"But she wouldn't go without me."

"Edward, you could do music. You always loved that, and you only work here because Esme talked you into it. Go with her and be college kids together and maybe she will be able to grow up better with real life as her teacher. And she needs new friends. Alice is great with her but you can see Bella blames herself for Alice being taken, which was totally not her doing at all, Alice walked into that spider's web alone.

She could have just called you. She knew you would have come straight away. Once she saw the house.."

"James would have seen her, Dad. He would have gone out and got her."

"Hmm. There's another problem. Victoria's trial. Bella is obviously the one they need to testify. You and Alice were held for months, she was held for eight years. The jury needs to hear how bad those years were for her and at the moment, there's no way she could relive those memories."

"When is it going to happen?"

"Charlie's pulling in every favor he can and having it delayed. She's going to be charged firstly with James' murder, that will keep her inside for long enough for Bella to recover and be able to face the ordeal of the next trial. You saw her shoot him, you can testify."

"Sure," I agreed.

"Well, Bella has an appointment today with her shrink, go in with her if she agrees and I'll tell Siobhan everything you have said up front so she knows the situation. See what she thinks about college before we suggest it to Bella. Maybe SeattleU would be best, close to home."

I smiled, it seemed like a possible plan. We could experience college together and still live together and come home any time she wanted. Doing a course in music was not beneficial to my career, just would make my hobby more enjoyable. If Bella ever wanted to quit and come home early, I would leave with her with no regrets.

"Dad, any suggestions how I handle her questions about the other women I was with? I don't know how to explain why they happened. You understand? You had other girlfriends before Mom."

"I did," he agreed."The difference is, I had them BEFORE Esme, I didn't leave her for them."

"I didn't leave Bella for them, I left her to go to college and didn't want us tied down long distance."

"You had never been with other girls and now you have. Face that, Edward, you have spoilt what you two were, all you can do is offer her something better this time around. It will take time, son, maybe years but she will come to see you are her soul mate and that the others meant nothing to you."

I nodded.

"I do understand. Tanya was the candy store and you were the kid. At first you think it is so amazing, you want to stay forever and eat whatever candy you want then after a while, you start to long for something normal to eat. In time you can never face that type of candy again. I did go through that, Edward, most boys do. It's called thinking with your dick."

I smirked. He was right.

"Edward, at eighteen and nineteen, your dick is larger than your brain, son. You always went to see if she was back every Christmas. If she had been, you would have tried to be with her a lot earlier. Esme and I knew that. You regretted your actions but it was too late. Think of it this way, had you never looked for her, Bella would have lived her entire life in that basement. Your arrival, and Alice's, set things in motion and broke into Bella's shell. She only acted to save you two, not herself. It never occurred to her she could save herself all those times he let her out alone. She loves you, and Alice to a lesser degree and she had to save you. She loves you more than she loves herself. James took away her value as a human being, you need to give it back to her."

"I know, Dad, and I owe her."

"No, you don't owe her. She doesn't need your gratitude. You love her. Just love her forever and the balance will be restored."

Siobhan thought college was a great idea and Bella was enthusiastic, which surprised me. Then I realised, she wasn't afraid of crowds, she was only ever afraid of being alone.

X~x~X

Bella's POV

Edward was tripping over the stack of shoes Alice had insisted every female needs, and I knew when we came back from college, we needed a bigger house. With closets. Alice suggested I design my new house and she could add on a dressing room with 'plenty of closet space' so I imagined the floor space just got doubled.

"Edward has clothes, too," I reminded her and she clicked on the outer wall of the floorplan and moved it further out.

Probably shouldn't be encouraging her.

"How many bedrooms?" she asked.

"One," I replied, frowning.

"Bella, nobody has one bedroom. What if you have...guests," she settled on.

I was sure Edward kept everyone updated on the state of my wrecked brain and she would know by now we were never having children.

They are too vulnerable.

I watched Josh toddle around the playpen where baby Edward and baby Eamon lay. How would Rose or Alice survive if they were taken? They wouldn't.

They didn't have the threat of Victoria hanging over them, she had never showed the slightest interest in Josh. She knew Alice had a son but it wasn't important to her, like my children would be.

I couldn't risk it. The way courts let felons out nowadays, she will probably do about seven lousy years for killing James.

I don't grieve for James now I understand what he did to me. My feelings for him were always based on the belief he saved me, and kept me from the dangers outside in the world, but now I knew he manipulated me to feel that way and he was nothing short of a monster.

I hated what he had done to me and how he had robbed me of eight years of life, but worse, he had stolen many more years from my Father. Charlie was in poor shape and wouldn't 'make old bones' and the only thing keeping me from being completely happy about going off to SeattleU was the knowledge his heart could give out at any time.

He begged me to go anyway. His dearest wish was to see me living a normal happy life before he died.

I was facing up to the fact he would die soon.

It wasn't fair and his death had been hastened by James' actions but at least that man had been robbed of his own future as well.

Vicky probably saved a lot of girls a nightmare future by ending his.

"There's the guesthouse, right next door to the meadow," I reminded Alice.

"Yes, but if Esme had guests as well...don't forget, when you and Edward get married, there will be many guests from out of this state, we will need all the rooms we can get."

"Edward and I won't be getting married," I answered her offhandedly.

"Oh you will. I can see the wedding now. You walking towards him, him crying like some baby because he finally gets to keep his Bella. It will happen."

"He said he might move on some day," I told her.

She snorted.

"He meant, if he doesn't have you, he will probably go back to his old ways out of loneliness but that won't happen now he has you, silly Bella. You are the one he loves and he will keep you forever."

"He left me before. Dr Phil says the best indication of future behaviour is past behaviour."

"Wiki that man before you believe his words, Bella. And stop watching shows like that, you should be concentrating on your own life, not the saddoes they put on tv. If their stories weren't outrageous, they wouldn't get aired."

"Really? But aren't they true?"

"Bella, my sweet, there is truth and 'truth', and you are very vulnerable to persuasive men at the moment, maybe nature shows would be more your speed. Judge Edward for his actions now, he was a kid when you last knew him. He made silly, childish decisions. He has changed. Jasper has changed, Emmett's changed. You are the only one who hasn't and you will. You are thinking with a seventeen year old brain at present."

She had a point.

"He is trustworthy, Bella. He's a grown up now, men do grow up you know. Eventually," she added quietly.

I laughed and she laughed with me.

"So, let's imagine you want a really nice house worth building and let's say four bedrooms downstairs and your big open dream loft bedroom combined with parent's retreat combined with open bathroom, and a couple of reading nooks, it's going to be awesome.

Once it's built, Esme and I will decorate it for you if you want. I love helping Mom when she's working and her results are always amazing."

"Nothing to fancy, Alice. I want a relaxed hippie/gypsy theme in the loft. Candelabras, and wind chimes. Lots of windows. Spa bath in the middle of a dormer window. Boxed in windowseat in another, so I can lay there and read in the sun in Winter."

"Good ideas, keep talking."

"I just want the whole upstairs to be totally open and spacious and no room for claustrophobia. Just put the powder room in the back corner and enclose it, nothing else. Open beams, wooden floors. You need to get a budget from Carlisle, he's lending me the money to build until I get compensation."

"Already talked to Dad. Is this going to be Edward's house as well?"

I rubbed my face and pushed my hair back. Alice had dragged me off to have my horrible hair dyed and it was brown with a chestnut sheen. Very shiny. I liked looking in the mirror now.

"I guess. I don't know, Alice. Is his idea of forever the same as mine?"

Edward walked in and paused at my words.

"My idea of forever is eternity. Is yours?" he asked, wrapping his arms around me and placing a hand in the small of my back.

"Just marry her for God's sake," Alice murmured.

"I would, if she would have me," he replied.

"Edward,"I growled,"I explained that. Marriage doesn't guarantee anything. It's a piece of paper."

"It's a meaningful piece of paper in my world. It indicates you made a promise you will do your very best to uphold. When I promise to love my wife for every minute of forever, I will mean it with all my heart."

"You promised to love me forever before," I reminded him.

Edward sighed and dropped his arms from my body.

"I'm not going to give up, Bella. One day you will believe what I say and accept we are forever this time. I made a lot of mistakes and I'm sorry but you need to accept me baggage and all or move on. It's that simple."

"Edward, she's been through too much, give her a break. She has no idea what truth is now."

He nodded and took my hand.

"Maybe the best thing to do is to start again. We can share an apartment and have our own bedrooms and I will always be there for you in the night if you can't sleep but I think we need to step back and make sure this is what we both want. I know it's what I want, but you don't trust me and that's fair. I can see why and I know James did your head in, love. Let's take it one day at a time and try dating and see what happens. You might be the one to meet someone you like more than you like me."

I didn't turn into my usual shaking mess. I stood there and decided he was actually right. I was just rushing from one man to another, because he was there. Our relationship was different of course, to the one I thought I had with James but I hadn't waited and got to know this new grown up Edward. Alice was right, he had changed.

"You won't get tired of waiting for me?" I checked. I couldn't bear for him to go off with someone else.

"I'll wait forever, this time. I promise. And you can choose what part of your life you want to share with me. All of it, some of it as friends, or none at all if my presence stops you growing yourself and getting better."

"Thank you, Edward."

My heart would never change but we needed to be equals before we could be partners.

I have a lot of growing up to do.

X~x~X

Charlie wanted me to spend a whole day with just him, so I went to his house and cooked and packed his freezer with food.

"Dad, you know how to microwave, right?" I checked.

"Doesn't matter. I'm getting a live in carer tomorrow. I've taken leave until my retirement comes through, Bells. I just want to relax and watch the games and spend time with Billy Black before we are both too old to bait a fish hook."

"Good plan. Who is your carer? have you met her?"

"Yes, it's Sue Clearwater."

"Harry's wife? He doesn't mind her living in here with you?" I asked, surprised.

"Bells, Harry died five years ago."

Oh, so he died while I was in The Box. I guess the world did keep turning for everyone else while it halted in time for me.

"Sorry, Dad. I guess I missed a lot."

"Waylon's gone too, Bells. Boat accident. Few years ago now."

"No," I cried in denial. All those Christmases of my childhood, with him as Santa. Very drunk Santa by the end of the night, mind you. But he loved kids and never had any of his own and I was a favorite 'niece' of his.

"Oh, by the way, you have a stack of gifts to open. Your Mom brought something with her every year and Edward always came to put a gift under my tree for you. They are in the hall closet. I put money in your college fund, so your fees will be covered and then some by now."

"Thanks Dad."

Mom's gifts were clothing,of a sort. Lingerie, and got briefer and sexier in style each year.

I blushed at my Dad seeing these things and put them in a bag to take to college for future use. Edward would enjoy them one day.

His gifts made me so happy and so sad.

First I read every card and smiled at his beautiful writing and pretty words.

The first was full of apologies and regrets.

The second was full of hope that I was happy now I had 'moved on'.

The rest were little memories of things we had shared.

I opened the parcels. They were all the same.

Always a white T shirt, always with a different photo he loved of the two of us together. I pulled one on, and wrapped my arms around my torso, and cried.


	14. Chapter 14

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 14

BPOV

Saying goodbye to everyone, even if only for a few months, was difficult. I had barely had time to reconnect with Edward's family, and Esme hovered protectively around me whenever I was in her house. She still felt terrible because they did nothing while James held me captive but how could they have known? I had rejected her attempts to comfort me after Edward left and refused her many invitations to visit or have dinner with them, and when she came to Charlie's house, I had always rudely gone to my bedroom without even bothering to fake a headache or any acceptable excuse to leave the room she was in.

I knew I was blaming her for letting Edward leave me, as ridiculous as that is. I used to think, had the family stood up for me and voted, Edward would have kept me and not cast me aside but now I can see it was part of the shock and grief talking. I wanted to blame everyone else because the inside knowledge I had failed to be what he needed was too intense and shattering.

It was when the veils slipped away and I had to accept responsibility that his desertion was indeed all my fault, that I truly fell apart and started visiting the forest. My psychologist has asked me many times what I was looking for there because Edward sure as Hell didn't live in the forest, and never had.

The only thing I could come up with was, I was flirting with danger and possibly was hoping a bear would find me and end my misery. I was pretty suicidal back then and I lacked the guts to actually end myself so I suppose wanting a wild animal to find me was a cowardly way to die without having to go at my own hand. I vaguely remember thinking if I jumped off a cliff, everyone including my Dad, would know I had died by choice. If a bear took me away and ate me for his dinner, it could always be 'an accident'.

People could still face Charlie and be sympathetic in a way they never would manage if I had topped myself.

I knew the people who lived in that little area were not there for the views and the trees, except to hide in. They were not Forks most respectable citizens, and whenever just about any crime was committed, Charlie and Tom would head out and question the inhabitants so I did not walk into that place uninformed.

It never occurred to me one of those men would harm me or take me, but I guess I didn't really care enough to even think things through.

At first I assumed James was going to kill me, once we got inside his house and no Edward was there waiting. I remember he told me maybe Edward was downstairs and I was surprised when he opened the closets and showed me the trapdoors, explaining how there were two basements and he had guest quarters down there. It seemed kind of odd, but what would I know.

Charlie had no basement but many houses do, Mike and Jess's parents houses had basements that had been converted to areas for their teenagers to hang out with friends and the music we played was less audible from down there, so it made sense and I went willingly to my doom, climbing down behind James, my heart beating out of my chest with excitement that Edward waited there for me.

James appeared puzzled when nobody was there, and he opened the two bedroom doors and peered inside.

Vicky was sitting on a bed, in the bedroom I came to know was hers and she jumped up and ran towards us, pleading for James to allow her upstairs and he slammed the door loudly and told me to ignore her, she was just 'a friend'. Now I realise he was just setting up in my mind the message she was his captive, and not the real truth, that he was pretty much her puppet.

He then opened The Box and I remember feeling that first pang of fear, that first gut feeling this was wrong and not what it seemed and sure enough, he shoved me to the floor and closed the door behind himself.

When I stopped screaming, he calmly explained the system. If I did as I was told, I would get rewarded, if I disobeyed, I would be punished.

His first order was that I remove all my clothes and place them in the bathtub that I had seen near the wall so I hurriedly obeyed, even though I was pretty sure I was about to be sexually assaulted. I just needed him to open the door again. He ordered me to sit on the horrid toilet seat and not move and he opened the door and I cried out in both intense fear and yet also relief. However all he did was take my clothing and toss a blanket inside.

"That's your bed. You have one blanket. If you are exceptionally good, you will get a second blanket in a few days time. If you scream and carry on, then I take that blanket back and give it to someone who deserves it.

I am going to bring you food once a day, you will never know when, but if I tap on this door, you immediately move to sit on that toilet. If I open the door and you are anywhere else, I give your food to Victoria, my other little bird.

If she is bad, I give her food to you.

Understand?"

I nodded and sat there frozen.

"This is how you get water. To drink, put this plastic beaker under the spout and flick this across and hold it for as long as it takes to fill. When you need to wash yourself, sit in the tub and leave the faucet open and it will gradually pour enough water over your body to use the washcloth and soap. The water isn't heated but if we have a lot of sunny days, it will be a little warm. The tank is on the sunny side of the yard. Here is your towel, you leave it in the tub each day and I will replace it. Any questions?"

"When is Edward coming?" I asked like some moron.

He laughed.

"Oh Edward. Well, let's see, he isn't that reliable. He seems to enjoy leaving more than coming home, so I'm going to guess it could be quite a while but you never know, if I report to the authorities that you have been extra good, maybe they will send him an invitation. If you are bad, then all I can do is tell them that and they will never contact him at all. Now, I have to go attend to some important business. I'll tell you about it tomorrow. You probably ate breakfast already before you came to visit so I will bring your first meal tomorrow. Just relax and make yourself at home and I'll talk to you in the morning. Pleasant dreams."

With that, he shut the door and changed my world to one of perfect blackness. For some insane reason, I held out hope Edward would come and make James set me free so I just wrapped myself in that blanket and sat there and waited until I had to feel around and find the faucet and drink. I couldn't locate the beaker so I just let the tepid fluid run into my mouth and then I turned it off in case there was a limit to how much I was allowed.

I did a lot of thinking and decided to wake up to myself and go on with my life if Edward didn't come and James let me go, which he surely would once he found out Dad owned nothing but an old clapboard house in an unfashionable street and even if he sold it, the bank would take most of the money to repay his mortgage.

There was my college fund and the pittance I had saved in my own account but that sort of money was hardly worth the risk of being banged up for kidnapping. I was seventeen for another few weeks, that may make it child abduction? I didn't know the logistics.

At some point I crawled to the lumpy straw mattress and slept.

I had no idea how much time had passed when James opened the door again but I remember hurrying to sit where I was meant to and waiting for him to tell me it was all a mistake, he thought I was someone whose parents had money.

Instead he smiled at me as I blinked in the shock of light entering my cave, and told me Renee had rushed home when she got a panicked call from Charlie and did I remember the other basement?

I hadn't given it a thought.

"Well, Bella, guess what? Renee is staying here with us as well. Isn't that exciting? And now you get to decide how I treat her because it's a little colder in that basement and she hasn't gotten any blankets yet. So, let's see how we go and if you can earn your Mom a blanket, okay?"

"Renee's here? How did she get all that way so fast?" I asked and he frowned.

"She was already on her way to visit, actually, Charlie called her while she was half way here."

"On the plane?"

"Yes, Bella, on the plane. I don't like your tone. There are phones on planes, you know."

There were?, I thought, because I didn't know that.

"Well, here's your food for today, don't eat it all at once and your attitude better change or Renee will get very cold down there in her Box. So goodbye and remember this rule, Bella. You must never speak to me unless I speak to you first. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I replied, but all I could think was, he was leaving again and shutting that door.

"James, did you talk to my Dad?"

"He was busy out fishing but I'm sure he and I will chat. Good night, Bella. I know it's not night out there but it is in here, so that seems the appropriate greeting. Goodnight."

"Goodnight James," I murmured.

The next day he told me because I had not screamed since he visited, I could have a second blanket and Renee now had a blanket as well.

I was so relieved I thanked him three times and he shook his head.

"Now, for the next little while, you and I are not going to talk, so when I bring you food, just be good and stay quiet. That will get Mom another blanket if you last a whole week without yammering at me. Let's try this, Bella. I know you can do it, for your Mom."

The only hope I had was if I talked to myself when he wasn't there, so thus began the pattern. I chatted inanely, I made plans to go to college once James freed me, I thought of the job I would get and the career I would have to pay back whoever Charlie borrowed my ransom from. I pictured my friends in my head and chatted to them and I slept, a lot. James came and went, no words were spoken until he was gone again, then I asked my friends what we were eating today and crawled to the tray and felt each thing and tried to guess what it was in the dark.

Mostly I was right because it was simple things like bread, fruit, sometimes pie, sometimes cookies even, so I would sit in the dark and smell them and try and guess what flavor. Sometimes I was right, but flavors like pecan fooled me at first but I did learn and I was quite the expert as time passed. I could pick what was on that tray in minutes.

I divided my daily bounty into three piles and ate when I figured a third of the day had passed, but it wasn't infallible and sometimes it was a very long time between the last snack and the next when I gauged the time had gone by faster than reality.

Of course I mucked up at times, James would come and still not say a single world and I couldn't take it so I begged him to speak and he would shake his head and take one of my blankets so I wouldn't speak again for ages, weeks.

Sometimes I had a bonus tray, therefore knew Victoria, the red haired girl in the bedroom, had been bad and I admit, I loved it when that happened. The first time I worried about her and her lack of sustenance that day but really, it was so great getting an extra orange, a juice box, and a real sandwich plus her cookies as well, I soon ceased to care about her and just did a little dance of joy when those days came around now and then. I wished she would be bad more often and tried sending her vibes telling her to muck up.

It didn't work but I tried and it became my daily mantra.

"Please God, let Victoria be bad today. Thank you. Look after my Mom, she doesn't deserve to be here. Amen. Love from Bella."

I mean, I had never prayed before, I didn't know what one was meant to say.

Some days James brought me treats and I have to admit, it was the highlight of my life if there was a tub of yogurt or even a little cup of ice cream. I made them last for an hour, melting the sweetness on my tongue.

My whole life became about food.

Edward did visit me, but only in my dreams at first, then I invited him to come share my yogurt one day and I could actually see his pretty face like a hologram there in front of me. I told him about my day, how I'd had friends over, and we'd hung out here and chatted, and how I was missing my Dad and asked him about his day but he didn't speak for some reason, during those visits so I just pointed my plastic spoon in his direction so he could taste the yogurt.

He never took it all, he always left some on the spoon for me.

He never got any older, as the years passed.

He did wear whatever I wanted him to, I liked him in green because it highlighted his eyes so he wore green a lot. Sometimes he was naked. I know, bad me but whatever. You live in a dark cave and only have imaginary friends and see what they wear.

My life was pretty boring and endless but I figured the money thing hadn't panned out and James was waiting for Charlie to get rich and I knew that wasn't going to happen.

Then James broke the news to me that my dad was dead.

I didn't have any friends over for a long time, all I did was sit and cry. Even Edward couldn't comfort me though he did visit and watch me silently as I cried.

Finally I knew I had to accept my loss and go on. I started to eat again, and James rewarded me with things like real chocolate bars but now I suspect he had been worried I was dying so he was trying to tempt me.

I felt every inch of the walls and floor and bath tub and the tubing running down the wall. I wondered if I pulled on it if it would come free and fill the Box with water and drown me, but the rate that water dripped I would die of pneumonia before there was enough depth to cover my head. I considered all forms of suicide and ranted some days because there was nothing to use, no poison, no gun, no friendly rope to caress my throat.

No clothes even to tear into a rope.

The towel was impossible to rip, I did chew on it's binding but it didn't shred like I hoped and I chipped a tooth and had the company of pain for a few weeks, that was good. But it couldn't have been much of a chip because it eventually stopped, despite me pushing my tongue against the rough edge everyday in the hope it would keep hurting. The pain was good, it was a change.

Change was magical.

My periods stopped altogether at some point around that time but I don't know when it was, what year. That made things a little cleaner and my blankets were no longer damp with blood, but it was still horrible washing in the tub.

James took my blankets away now and then even though I was always good and he would toss me new ones and wrinkle his nose at the old disgusting ones but I figured, what did he expect? It was hardly sanitary down here.

Then just when I figured I was probably really old by now, maybe even the age my granny had been when she died, James started talking to me again.

It was wonderful, strange, but quite amazing.

He told me about the war that I now know never happened but I had believed him at the time, and about the New Order and the Government and the Rules, then he explained about the white cars but I didn't really care because I was hardly ever going to see any cars of any color down here.

He kept retelling me every day, the white cars belong to the bounty hunters and they had two jobs.

Watch and report, and catch and kill.

If a person had permission to leave their house, they just watched and made sure that person didn't speak to anyone they shouldn't, and they made reports to your master, and mine was James.

If you went outside without permission, they would chase you and hunt you down and kill you. James told me many times he could not stop them, if I went out and he didn't know, they would catch me and he would not be able to save me.

I accepted the rules but I still didn't imagine for a minute what was coming. I assumed I was in my cave forever by now, it had been a lot of years, maybe twenty or more?

Then one glorious day, James took me out of The Box for the first time and took me upstairs into a real bathroom with a window and everything. He told me to take a shower and wash my hair and I stood under hot water until my skin was red and raw.

I learned the hard way not to do that again.

But mainly I remember the smell, the change in smell. Before I was used to my own body odour and the disgusting was I reeked, it was just how it was. After that shower I smelt of strawberry shampoo and vanilla soap and some kind of flowery body wash, maybe freesia's?

I was hooked, I became instantly addicted to those scents and was determined to earn my way upstairs again.

It became a weekly treat and I hated laying down on my grungy blankets again when I smelt so amazing.

The one unbelievably happy day, he decided suddenly he needed The Box and I was shoved into a real honest to God bedroom, and it had a real bed and sheets, I had forgotten sheets. They felt strange, kind of cold and smooth after the roughness of the blankets all those years.

James gave me a birthday card from my Mom, and then a pacthwork quilt she made from all the Tshirts of the places we had visited as a family over the years. I guess she needed to make things to keep busy and pass the time. I was looking forward to the day we got to share a bedroom, James said if I kept following the rules that day would come.

The bedroom was like a 5 star luxury hotel by comparison to The Box.

I even had a pillow but I felt like I was propped up at an odd angle so I didn't use it to sleep on at first.

It was soft and I put it behind my back when I sat up against the wall to read the books my Mom had brought with her when she came here. They were so familiar, I recalled every crease in their covers, and my name was written on every front page.

At first, I just stared at the words, and didn't even try to read, it was enough to have them back, to touch and hold and smell them again.

Then I allowed myself to read again.

I felt like I really had friends now as they came alive in the pages, and I no longer needed the friends in my brain. I missed Edward but I had so many other old friends, I guess I got over it.

I knew I would always remember him and love him in a way but Rawdon Crawley was there with me now, and I enjoyed his flawed company waiting for me whenever I opened Vanity Fair.

And I cheated on him with Rhett Butler when the urge hit. I was a different person while reading each novel, and I would sit and wonder which of my suitors I would allow to breathe and come alive each day.

With The Box occupied, Vicky and I were allowed upstairs five times a day to use the bathroom up there and those times were Heaven. I would lay back on my bed and just smell the scent of vanilla on my newly washed hands and wonder how I had gotten to be so lucky to have James provide me with such wonderful things, like soap with perfume in it, and soft towels, and bed sheets. He became something of a hero in my eyes, especially knowing he had chosen to save me in the war and he was protecting me still from the Government.

Vicky told me she was allowed outside and I sat there in wonder.

Outside outside.

Not out of The Box outside but outside in the air.

She begged James to allow me to peg out our washing so I could experience outside as well and at first I kept forgetting my job and just standing in the gentle sun and feeling it on my skin until Vicky would remind me what I was meant to be doing.

I didn't want to upset James so I tried harder and worked faster.

Then one day they both started talking about taking me to town.

There were many rules, I had to hold both James and Vicky's hands, and stay between them, never have eye contact with anyone, never speak, and I admit, I was sick with excitement that first time until we actually left the yard, then all I could think was, what if James was sick of me now he had a new girl he was rescuing and this was a trick?

I held their hands really tightly and kept my eyes to the ground and shook until we got back home, when I ran downstairs in relief.

Those outings happened again and again and then just Vicky and I went, with James permission.

Around that time, I started talking to the new girl and telling her how lucky she was to be saved by James. Her name was Jane and her Mom was named Connie and James came and told her Connie was here, with Renee, and I was glad now Renee had someone to talk to. But Jane didn't behave that well and started talking in a very foolish way and I felt like she wouldn't last but she did, for three years.

The day Vicky bleached my hair was a total shock because I hadn't seen my face and I almost expected the reflected image to be one of my gran, not me, as I was sure I had been in The Box that long, so it was a shock to see the same young me there.

I had been out alone by then and had seen the Edward holograms but my mind was confused because they spoke, and they never had before.

Then I realised it wasn't even Edward because while I was the same age, the man who grabbed my arm was older. Edward had such smooth baby soft skin and this man had bristles on his chin.

Edward had soft short copper hair and he had longer duller shining locks.

Maybe he was something the Government made to trick me into speaking. I knew men had new powers and his were the ability to make my skin tingle and burn.

I ran home really fast and hoped against hope he wouldn't report that I had spoken at him. I didn't speak to him, that was forbidden.

Now I knew it had been Edward, the real Edward, but it took time to accept that. I knew it was the real Edward that came to James' house because Alice talked about him.

Nothing made sense back then but it's slowly begun to be all normal again now as the puzzle pieces fit together. The past few months have been crazy and hard to accept but sometimes I just act like I know what's going on and go with it.

Edward and I were back on track but now he's called it all to a halt again, but he is coming with me to SeattleU so I just have to wait and see what happens next.

He wants me to have all the life experiences I have missed out on, so I do worry about what that means, but who knows? So long as it doesn't involve Boxes, I think I can handle anything.

**Please review if still reading, do you want this to continue or are we bored? As usual, not edited yet, will fix mistakes next week.**


	15. Chapter 15

**I have never been to NY or NYU, I know nothing about it, so my concept of it may be really inaccurate. Put it down to this being fan FICTION please. Aussies know nothing about the US except what we see on TV shows. (Let's see, you have school choirs and serial killers and a drug addicted nurse...I may only watch Glee, Dexter, Bones and Nurse Jackie!)**

As If I Never existed

Chapter 15

EPOV

The apartment we chose was close enough to walk to campus but far enough to be in a quiet neighborhood and not subjected to the sounds of keggers and all night parties, all part of the college experience. I didn't think Bella would be able to handle things like frat parties but I could really only explain what happened at them, and advise her she may want to delay those type of outings for a year or so yet. I couldn't tell her not to go.

I was a little confused how things would work for her here. Charlie wasn't too keen for her to date other guys but Carlisle and Siobhan both felt it was something she needed to do, so she could make her choice based on knowing who else was out there. Both felt she would choose me ultimately, anyway, but choosing from a pool of one was hardly making a choice.

I could understand that and I had gotten to explore my own options at NYU, so I was hardly in a position to get in her way and stop her doing what I had done myself.

The thought of her sleeping with other guys tore me up inside, but once again, I'd been there and done that, with other women.

I had to stand back and only intervene if she needed me or asked for my help.

I wanted her to have the bigger bedroom but she immediately decided she wanted the smaller room as it was on the side of the building overlooking the park next door and she preferred that view to the one from my window.

I was overlooking the street.

We unpacked and stored away our clothes and she would laugh every now and then over what Alice had bought for her to wear. Bella cared little for clothes, the years away had killed any thirst for fashion, clothes had become something that covered your body and kept away the cold. Alice had sighed that she had been through this before, with Angela, and it wasn't happening again, so Bella owned a collection of colorful gypsy shirts and embroidered blouses as well as a stack of designer jeans and better quality hoodies. Even hoodies went against the grain with Alice but I think she knew fancy knitwear would be left unworn so she managed to gird her loins and buy the obviously favored outfits college kids wore.

I was worried I might feel like some creep amongst all the younger students here but luckily SeattleU is a popular choice for mature aged students as well and I fitted in fine. Bella had no problem at all, looking so much younger than her twenty five years.

I did grin at the boys who stared her way, mostly they were barely out of their teens so I was pretty confident she would spurn them out of hand.

Bella had chosen Creative Writing and English Literature and associated classes while I stuck with solely a Music based course. I worried a little she was taking too much on, but my job was to support, not make her decisions for her.

Her psychologist here, Aro, was one of the New Age free thinking types I hate, always on about how important it was for her to experience everything, and Bella asked me once if I thought she really had to have a lesbian relationship to 'know her true path in life' because she really had no interest in that.

It was one of the few times I spoke out against her professional advisers and I told her in my opinion she should only do whatever she herself was comfortable with because it was she who had to live with those decisions, not Aro.

I tried to explain how conflicted I felt about my own foolish decisions in my past and how at the time, certain things may seem unimportant and you can brush them off as just something everybody else does therefore fine for you to do as well, but they do come back to haunt you.

I still have this area in my brain where I feel cheap because I was with Tanya, and being with a girl like that for so long, now makes me wonder what issues I was having myself at the time, to settle for so little. Dad insists it's something most men go through but Jasper never did, for instance. He loves the fact he has only ever slept with my sister, and she with him.

Back then, I thought he was crazy and would live to regret it, and I even thought he would have to cheat on Alice one day because they got together and stuck like glue, and never dated others.

When I brought that up, he shot down my theories and said when you meet your soul mate straight off, it's insane to keep looking because you are already with your One. There is no-one else.

I thought that was stupid, there must be a selection of possible partners out there for each of us and he said he really couldn't explain. He just knew the day he met Alice that she was his One and he had always been grateful she knew he was hers as well, so there was never a problem.

Girls had tried to hit on him in high school and college and he had tried to be polite in his refusal to consider even a single date with them, but he admitted he had been pushed to be rude sometimes when a persistent girl had not taken the hint.

Maria was a case in point, she chased Jasper for years and used her two followers to try and lure him away from Alice, always setting him up so he was 'caught' in questionable situations, like the time she followed him to the bathroom at a party, went inside while he was still making use of the facilities, and stripped herself naked.

Alice went looking for him and he had just opened the door and pushed past Maria but my sister never wavered in her trust. She knew Maria was a control freak and was extremely frustrated about being unable to attract Jasper in any way, so she handled it with her usual grace and aplomb.

"I don't blame you taking that dress off, Maria, it really is quite tacky. I tell you what, Rose and I found a really nice dress shop in Port Angeles, I'll go ask her the name of it and give it to you. You should try shopping there. Come on Jas, the dance floor awaits us."

How did he know yet I didn't know Bella was the only girl I could love and connect with? We seemed like an even stronger pairing than they were yet I walked away.

It wasn't lack of intelligence, and she knew what we were, so why wasn't I allowed in on the secret? I had no other experiences to compare ours to at the time and I admit, while I knew what we had was awesome, I just assumed I could have other relationships just as good. I thought the connection was something I would find again.

By the end of the first year of college, I knew I was wrong, but she was gone by then. Who knows what would have happened if she had been at Charlie's that first Christmas? Tanya was already in my past and my manwhore phase had passed. My brain was doing my thinking again. Angela and I were together but I already knew it was a much lesser relationship than the one I had shared with Bella, and it would not have bothered me to break up with Angie that holiday break.

Now I was entering possibly the worst phase of my life. Watching the girl I love date other men. There were no shortage of offers and she seemed to slightly favor a Senior named Garrett who was here doing some catch up he needed to qualify for the career he wanted. He'd failed first time round and just needed this one year to repeat some subject or another, I really didn't care why he was here.

He was good looking, well built, not too cocky, polite and seemed quite respectful. He came and introduced himself to me like I was Bella's father or guardian, which made me feel every day of my twenty six years. I know feeling old at twenty six is ridiculous but when your competition is a youthful twenty three and nearer the emotional age of your girl, it rankles.

He invited Bella out to dinner as a first date and I was busy trying to get her to spill what restaurant as I could coincidentally be going to that same one myself. I had to eat. I wasn't sitting home alone while some man tried to put his paws all over my Bella.

I could just get a table at the back and be there in case she needed to escape his clutches. That was quite reasonable. Ask anyone.

She was unsure what to wear and I asked her again for the name of the venue.

"Why does it matter, Edward?"

"Well, if it's a drive through like McDonald's, then jeans are acceptable. If it's a proper sit down restaurant, then dress pants would be better."

"I was thinking a dress could cover any situation," she replied and I shook my head. No way was she wearing a dress, too much access.

"You don't want to come across as some girlie girl who sees her future as a stay at home housewife with 2.4 children, you need to show him you intend having a career and being independent," I raved, making it up as I went along.

"And a dress says all that? That I don't want a career?"

she asked, frowning.

"Definitely."

She decided the pair of arse hugging designer jeans were the best choice, to cover all standards of restaurant, and started looking through some of the scandalous blouses my sister had purchased. Jasper and Carlisle both need to take away the credit cards they gave that girl, she is buying clothes for my girl that a hooker would wear!

Cleavage, as if it's appropriate to show cleavage at college!

I suggested she wear something with a turtle neck and long sleeves, maybe in mustard and not because that's the most unflattering shade on Bella with her fair skin. I just think mustard is a good color. It's not flirty or cheap, it says sensible and intelligent.

No, Bella didn't buy that either.

I grabbed one of the white Tshirts I had left under Charlie's tree, and held it out.

"Now this is good, casual yet classy."

"Edward, it has a photo of the two of us kissing. I don't think Garrett would want to sit across the table from that all night."

Across the table, good. No sliding up close in a booth then.

I shrugged.

"It's a great photo of you, look at your hair. It was so long and wonderful. I miss your hair."

"I still have some hair, you make me sound bald," she growled.

"Oh of course, your hair is still lovely and shoulder length looks good on you too," I assured her hurriedly.

"Should I wear make-up?" she asked me and I felt torn. She's a natural beauty with amazing skin but he doesn't need to know that. Yet when Alice adds just a little subtle make-up Bella's beauty is even more obvious.

"I think you should wear make-up but maybe more than usual. It should look suitable for an evening out," I ended up saying and she shot me a look.

"I don't mean like a lady of the evening, just nothing too natural looking."

"Edward, go away. Go to your own bedroom and stay there. And if you turn up at the restaurant, I will report you to campus security as a stalker."

So, they are eating at a place on campus then? There's the Italian restaurant and the Thai food place, those are the only really good places.

I wish I knew Garrett's surname so I could call and check if he had reservations at either.

I sat on my bed with my back against the wall, watching out of my open doorway. Bella finally emerged and I choked a sob back because she looked beautiful. Really beautiful. That damned sister of mine had taught her well. Her eyes looked kind of smoky and captivating, her lips were softly rose petal pink, and her hair shone like mahogany. Her top was one of the more modestly cut styles and was a blue that was between sky blue and sea blue and her skin looked like cream. I wanted to kiss it and lick it and...

"Goodnight, Edward. Have a good evening here at the apartment," Bella said pointedly as the unworthy Garrett gasped at my girl's beauty and took my hand. Her hand. I mean, her hand that belongs to me, and kissed it.

What a complete jerk, like girls like having their hands kissed these days! Shows what a complete idiot he is.

Bella blushed, so clearly she was embarrassed too but I can't explain the sparkle in her deep brown eyes as he smiled at her.

He's probably a Lothario, been with a hundred girls and thinks Bella will be his 101.

"Don't be too late, you have school tomorrow," I said then cringed at both my own words and Bella's glare.

"I believe I am an adult and can decided my own bedtime," she growled and I raised my hands in surrender. She was right.

"Just make sure it's in your own bed," I muttered.

"What?" she asked rudely.

"What?" I replied.

"Goodnight, Edward. Do not wait up," she said crossly and they disappeared into the elevator.

I returned to my room and watched out the window. Garrett handed her a bike helmet and strapped it on her head then stepped onto his Harley! Fucking donor cycles, he was going to kill her! The elevator was still down so I pressed the button repeatedly before giving up. I ran down the stairs as fast as I could but they had disappeared by the time I rushed outside. The parking space was empty and they were no longer in sight.

Well, that was it. I spent a whole evening by the phone waiting for the hospital to call and tell me she was dead. Like Charlie had not suffered enough, she had to go and die on her first date.

It was midnight when she came home and I had paced a hole in the carpet by then. They just don't think about the consequences their actions have on others. Young people today! So selfish.  
>"So, alive," I said as she opened the door and came inside. "What were the chances? Do you know how many people die in bike accidents?"<p>

"I'm sure you will tell me," she replied cheekily and I shook my head and stood there, hands on hips, looking at this selfish, uncaring little girl who just dates any man who asks and doesn't even do a background check. I had done one, luckily, and Charlie had called in a favor and we both now knew everything about Garrett Arthur James Ireland, including his mother's maiden name. There wasn't much to know, but still, a speeding ticket when he first got his first car did not bode well. I mean, once a man experiences the thrill of speeding, he can hardly stop and slow down to the legal limit, he was just lucky to have never been caught again.

"He's dangerous, Bella. Charlie and I discussed his record and while you think one ticket means.."  
>"You and my DAD discussed Garrett?" she said icily.<p>

"Bella, it's not unknown for girls to disappear off campus," I told her.

"Are you going to lock me up to keep me safe because if you are, we should go back to Forks and Dad can keep me in a cell at work."

"He doesn't work any more, Bella," I reminded her.

"I'm sure Tom would do him a favor and keep me under lock and key."

I considered that, she was probably right. I could ask him.

"Edward, you are partially behind this whole giving me life experiences thing, let me do this or let's forget the whole thing and go back to how we were before."

I realised then I was being a tool and I backed away.

"I'm sorry, love, it's hard for me. I won't say another word and I won't check your next friend's background, I'm sure you can recognise if he is trustworthy. You aren't ill any more, you have your instincts back."

"No need anyway, I'm going out with Garrett again and you know everything about him already."

A second date? Was that necessary? I had kind of pictured her just having single dates with lots of men. Not second dates.

"Goodnight, Edward" she said softly and closed her door.

A second date?

X~x~X

Bella's POV

Coping with Edward's reaction to my new dating life is helping me cope with it myself, to my surprise. Of course I had it in my head that Garrett would take me away somewhere and lock me up but he just took us to the Thai restaurant on campus and ordered dinner. It was nice and I was happy talking to someone new whose life I had little idea about. It was fun, and he was so relaxed, I couldn't help but follow his lead.

We had a bit of a giggle at Edward's expense, and Garrett referred to him as 'my father' but he has no idea what either of us has been through so I forgave him and just had an enjoyable evening with a friend. He didn't try to kiss my lips thank the gods because I don't even know if I can do that. He kissed my cheek and thanked me for coming out with him and suggested we go to the college football game on Saturday to support our team so I accepted.

Not so much a date as an outing. I presume we will be with other people, Garrett has a lot of friends here.

Edward was very agitated when I got home but neither of us said anything too crazy and I gladly slipped into my bedroom and started my nightly regime. The only way I can stay out of Edward's bed is by taking sleeping pills and my psychologist here thinks the same as Siobhan did, that drugs are the better coping method than complete dependency on another person. James made my brain need someone to lean on. I haven't stepped inside Edward's bedroom at all since we got here.

I changed my clothes and went into my adjoining washroom to clean off my make-up and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Am I still me? Am I growing as a person? I don't look any different, and I never noticed how uneven my lips were until I came back. Now I feel self conscious about them. The bottom lip is too full, and I can't help trying to disguise that flaw by sucking it into my mouth. My eyes are so boringly brown, and my hair has a long way to go before it can be considered nice again.

The color is fine, though not my own, and the length is just annoying, I haven't had short hair since I was two years old.

I cleaned my teeth and went to bed, putting the cd on to play while I slept. Aro's hypnotic voice soothed me and assured me I was a worthwhile person who deserved everything in life that I want. I have no idea if his words worm their way into my brain as I slumber, I guess maybe they do because I feel calmer these days. I welcome oblivion as it overtakes me chemically.

Friday I had lunch with Garrett and his friends when he caught up with me after class, and Edward was in the music department practise room working on something he was composing so why not? His friends were all similar to him, loud, happy and I was welcomed into their midst like an old friend. We went a bar after school ended and then to a Chinese restaurant for an impromptu dinner and then dancing at a club. I was exhausted by the time I got home and Edward's door was shut so I snuck into bed after taking my usual tablet and slept like a log.

I don't dream when medicated so my nights are a complete blank to me now. Maybe I should have listened and taken the medication from the start.

Saturday I slept in and only woke when Garrett came around to get me. Edward was in the kitchen cooking breakfast but by the time I had rushed around getting showered and dressed, I thought Garrett had waited long enough so we skipped eating in favor of meeting up with his gang. The game didn't start until two so we spent the morning playing our own form of football in the park. I was goalie until my team decided I was letting too many balls through, then I got to compete against the others to get the ball. I felt really short for the first time in my life, with all these giants overtaking me and kicking the ball away from my feet with their ridiculously long legs.

I was flushed and exhilarated by the end and didn't even care about how badly we had been beaten.

I dashed home next door for a shower and clean clothes and was surprised to find Edward sitting by my window, watching the others as they kicked the ball around while waiting for me.

"I thought you'd be composing," I said as I walked in and stripped off my sweaty clothing without thinking.

Edward's eyes flashed and looked over my nakedness and I fled to the bathroom and showered. He was gone when I came out, and I dressed in jeans and a black T and headed for Garrett and the game.

X~x~X

Edward's POV

As the months passed, I started to feel superfluous here now. Bella is coping with classes, dates, life in general and has slept alone since we arrived. No screaming at night, no simpering in the corner. I think her treatments have worked better than any of us imagined and I think it's time I went home and left her to enjoy college without her having to worry about my every reaction.

I had nobody watching over me in my turn and she deserves the same freedom.

With a heavy heart and a feeling of loss and impending doom, I handed my keys to Bella and told her to get herself any new room mate she wanted, even Garrett.

I wasn't worried for her, only for myself. Not only was she growing and catching up with what she had missed, she was growing away from me.

One term and here she was, the new improved, independent girl I used to know so well. Gone was the quiet, withdrawn, scared little rabbit.

"Don't go," she said, and I hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

"You don't need me. You are doing great."

"But your course."

"It was only an excuse to enable me to be here with you. I have a whole career waiting for me at home. You have things to do that I don't need to be here witnessing. I'll only hold you back, love. Be safe."

I turned and waved as I got into my car, and Bella waved back. She was smiling and I knew I was doing the right thing by her.


	16. Chapter 16

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 16

BPOV

Watching Edward leave was hard but I understood why he left and it wasn't like last time. He wasn't leaving me, he wasn't going away to move on. He was hoping I would finally sort out what I wanted. They all fail to understand that I've always known, and nothing will ever change. So, I have to date other guys to keep them all happy, so be it. It's no effort really, Garrett is fine and I like his friends. He's polite and clean and non controlling and I'm sure he will make a lovely husband for his One but we both know that's not me and never will be. He's aware what the truth is, and he and I discuss Edward often. He thinks the whole idea is crazy but he's using me like I'm using him. Maybe we are both doing exactly the same thing. Making everyone think we could be a couple so two certain people kick up their game a notch.

Jealousy is supposed to be this big motivator but so far, Garrett's main girlfriend is not responding as he hoped and Edward certainly is throwing me a curve ball. I expected him to break and beg me to stop dating Garrett and we could have gone back to how we were before. This sex ban is driving me nuts.

Kate, Garrett's girl, is always flashing me looks and I long to run to her and say "Just give him an ultimatum. All he wants is to know he is special. You date other people, he's dating me to show you he can do that too. Get your act together before one of you does something reckless and stupid."

Like one of you leaving to give the other more space.

Damn Edward, he's such a gentleman at heart. Only he would conclude the answer to our situation was to give me space. The only space I want is the space on my side of his bed.

Okay, I get that I have to cool my constant need for sex but really, shoving me off onto other men? Even if I slept with a handful of them, how would this cure me? All that can cure me is somebody erasing the past eight years.

I'm learning to cope and live again, I just need some guidance and I need Edward's love. I know he loves me, I know he did the hardest thing he's ever had to do, walking away but I know he believes it's for the best.

I can wait it out. He will be back.

I'm calling his bluff this time, I just hope to God he is bluffing because if he just stays away until I finish college, I will be so angry by then I'll probably rip him limb from limb. After I've had my way with him for several days straight.

Garrett took me shopping, he's convinced girls can achieve just as much satisfaction from a little plastic friend as from a real man's 'package' but they all look so cold. Cold and hard and not soft and warm and friendly. Edward's always looks friendly, it feels friendly too.

"Do I get to test drive them?" I asked Garrett as he pointed out the most popular styles under the glass case.

"Bella, gross. Both for thinking of that and for not thinking if you got to try them out, so would other people."

"Oh, yuk, thanks for that image. I will be sure to choose one that comes in a sealed pack. So, do they have ratings? Five stars, ten smiley faces?"

"Maybe whichever sell the best would be the right one," he suggested.

The sales assistant showed us several best sellers and then winked at me and whispered "I have the Rabbit myself, I can personally endorse it."

"Fine, the Rabbit it is," I replied, watching her discretely package my new plastic friend.

"I hope it comes with instructions," I commented as she handed it over.

"Very basic ones but you will soon figure out what you like doing with it. Give it a name, it makes them more personal."

"Well hi there Little Edward Substitute," I said to the brown paper parcel.

"LES, good one," she smirked.

"Come on, Les, we need to go home ad get acquainted," I said.

Garrett was off making purchases of his own so I waited and flicked through a magazine and blanched at the pictures it contained.

"There's a way to get three new notches on your bedpost, then you could go to Edward and tell him you two are even," Garrett snickered, walking up so quietly I hadn't a clue he was looking over my shoulder until he spoke.

"Three guys at once? Just no. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Now if Edward was one of triplet brothers..."

"Something to fantasize about when Mr Rabbit is doing his thing," he laughed.

"Les, he has a name. Show some respect."

Garrett was dating Kate tonight, she still went out with him once each week so I sat on Edward's bed and read the instructions, such as they were. Les just didn't look anything ike the real thing and his hard plastic exterior didn't look promising but I had to give him a chance.

Edward had lube and an unopened packet of condoms in his nightstand drawer so I helped myself and opened the tube and generously greased up Les.

"_Two speeds, user friendly blah blah.."_

Okay, here goes nothing.

At first it was just too strange and foreign then I started finding places Les felt quite good against and mid session, my cell buzzed. I put Les onto silent mode and answered.

"Hey Bella, how are you, love?" a velvety voice asked.

"Fine," I answered, moving Les into another spot and breathing deeply as he found someplace nice to vibrate against.

"So, date with Garrett tonight?" he asked.

"Nope, he's out with Kate."

"Date with anyone?"

"Hmm, Les. New guy. Edward, remember that time we were down the creek hiding from your Mom's eyes in Senior Year and we ended up making love outside for the first time?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Tell me about it."

"Have you forgotten?" he asked, hurt.

"Not at all, I just need you to tell me the details, every detail. Jog my memory."

Edward described every move he had made and how I had reacted and I had to cover the mouthpiece while he talked in case I moaned out loud. His words were having more effect than Les but between them, I ended up writhing about on his bed, smelling his lingering aroma, gasping in oxygen.

Edward grunted and I grinned.

"Did we just have phone sex, Bella?" he asked a few seconds later, sounding as breathless as I was.

"We did," I chuckled.

"You are a very bad girl," he growled and I laughed.

"You should spank me then."

"Bella, I have never..."

"Why not, Edward? How come we never did that?" I asked.

"Back then I had never heard of doing anything like that and then last time around, we seem to have settled for whatever got us there quickly," he answered.

"Third time round we will be trying new things," I promised. Who are we kidding, there will be a third time and it will last forever. I will keep my friend Les if I have to have less sex with Edward, maybe I should have taped this conversation and kept it to replay whenever needed?

"So, maybe we can try this again?" Edward said and I licked my lips.

"Definitely."

"You should try and get some sleep," he suggested.

"I think I will sleep well tonight, thanks to you and Les," I replied, and shut the phone.

Let him think about that.

EPOV

Returning home was a wrench, but I reminded myself I was doing this for Bella, even though part of me knew I was doing it for me, too. There was no way I would survive the night she didn't come home. I was sure she would never bring Garrett back to our apartment, so it would be her going to his and I would probably go insane so leaving was for my benefit as well.

Esme held her arms open wide as I walked inside.

"She needs this time, Edward. You don't know what she will do, she may just enjoy dating boys and never take it any further."

"She's been dating the same guy for four months, Mom," I replied and even Esme paused and raised an eyebrow.

"Exactly. But the good news is, Bella has come along in leaps and bounds. She hasn't been in my bed once, sad for me, good for her though. She sleeps all night and I have never even heard her cry out. She's doing well in her classes and insisted on getting a temporary job for the break instead of coming home. She will be back next break, though. She misses Charlie and Alice and Rose an yourself and the babies. So, how much have my nephews grown?"

"You won't recognise Eamon and Edward,they have their father's build now, and Josh is a real little boy. All that baby fat has disappeared and he's talking so well...it's a little sad, he's growing up."

"We all have to do that, Mother. Maybe Alice will have another baby for you to fuss over."

"I can't see it, she's loving working again and I have Josh here three days a week so he's not in childcare full time. Two days a week is enough for him to enjoy the company of his peers but he's such a bright boy, he's far advanced than other children his age."

Of course he is. Don't you love Grandmothers?

"So, what's the plan? Your father actually has Dr Benson on contract so he's filling in for you for the whole year. We thought you two would be away at least that long."

"So did I but it became obvious I wasn't handling things too well. I was starting to snipe at Bella and I didn't want to ruin everything. If she ever comes back to me, I want her to remember I gave her this time to grow, not spent my nights telling her off and rubbishing her date. Nobody got to trash my dates. I won't turn into some bitter and angry ex. I want to be her future, she just needs to live her present."

"I'm sure she will miss you."

"I'm not, she was barely ever home. It was always some event or another she was heading off to, Garrett firmly at her side."

"Is he a nice boy, Edward?" Esme asked me quietly. Clearly she was hoping if I lost Bella, that at least I lost her to someone nice.

"He is," I admitted. "She has blossomed since she met him. I hate to admit that."

"But there are other factors. She's away from the area where it all happened, so no constant reminders. She has her school work and all her new friends and she's let go of a lot of her fears, clearly, if she can face dating. It's all parts of her recovery, no doubt."

"I wish I could have been the one to help her," I grumbled.

"You did dear and you are giving her space."

"Handing her over to him, leaving him a clear playing field."

"Edward, you aren't going to sit here by the phone and stress until she calls, right?"

"What else would I do?"

"Well, I suppose you could do some volunteer work, I'm sure Carlisle will have something available to fill your time."

Dad was wary about my decision to come home and he told me not to unpack because Bella flourishing possibly had a lot to do with her feeling safe having me to run home to if things got overwhelming.

"No, she's fine, she's enjoying her life and she needs more freedom. The freedom to do whatever she wants without worrying about my reactions. She was holding herself back. I can tell when a man is ready, Carlisle, and Garrett is very ready. Now he has a clear playing field, the next move is up to Bella. You all wanted her to make choices, she will be."

"I don't know that sleeping around is going to help her, I hope she doesn't do anything she regrets. That girl has enough worries already."

That night as I lay in bed, my phone rang. Bella.

"Hey love, how are you?" I asked. It felt like we had been apart for days already.

The last thing I expected was the conversation that followed. At first I thought she had just remembered an incident from our past that she may have previously forgotten and she just wanted details to refresh her memory but her breathing indicated she was using my words to get herself off so I stripped off my jeans and boxers and wished we were on skype, I could have added some visuals. And watched her pleasure herself to my voice. I dragged it out, making up extra details, hearing her breathing hitch and she tried to cover her speaker but I could hear her moaning and sighing and I sat there and stilled my hand and let her sounds finish me off.

It had been a while and my towel copped a copious stream as my body pumped to her sighs.

It took a little time to recover enough to be able to speak but basically she admitted what was going on and promised to do this again and then drove me crazy by thanking me and 'Les'.

Surely he wasn't doing the touching while I was whispering in her ear? That would be too weird.

She may have slept but I didn't, not until her text message complete with photo of my competition arrived. He was hardly a match for what I could offer her.

X~x~X

I called her again the next night but we had a regular conversation, to my disappointment. I loved talking to her but last night had been a glimpse of the Bella I knew before, strong, out there, sexy as. But new Bella was captivating as well. Demanding yet needy.

"I miss you. I don't think I like it here alone," she replied.

"You aren't alone, you have a lot of new friends. And you have Garrett."

"Who I date because I have to date someone. I want you to come back. I want to date you."

"Bella, baby, all life experiences. You won't have those if I am there. And I can't just stay in that bedroom knowing at some point you will be in his bed."

"What! I have to sleep with him? Why? Why do I have to do stuff I don't even want to do?" she cried.

"I thought you would want to do everything most kids do in college and that does involve sleeping around to some degree."

"I don't want to sleep with anyone else but you," she replied tearfully."Why do two wrongs make a right? You said you regretted sleeping with Tanya and Angela and Bree yet I have to make the same mistakes? Does that mean I have to sleep with three guys?"

"No, not if you don't want to." God, I don't know what to do or say for the best.

"Come back, Edward. Please."

"Okay, call me in a week and we'll see if you still feel this way."

"One week. You promise you will come back in one week if I ask?"

"Sure. But just try living there without me, you may like it. And if you don't want me to come back by then, it's fine. You don't have to say anything or explain, you just need to not ask. I will understand."

So began the longest week of my life.

Wednesday night Bella, Les and I had another conference call.

If the idea was to make me ready to come back to her, it was working.

By Thursday night I was ready to bang my head against a brick wall. Friday was no better, but I did dig three new garden beds for my Mom to use up some energy.

Saturday night, Bella called again.

"Come back, Edward."

"Okay. I'll be there by tonight."

"Thank you," she whispered.

I grabbed my bag, ready packed. Esme had washed and ironed everything and I tossed it into my car and kissed my mother goodbye.

"Was a week long enough?" I wondered out loud.

"Any longer and you would have been chewing on the furniture. Just go."

Bella was standing in the car park and by the coldness of her skin, I knew she had been there some time. She ran straight into my arms and clung to me, then remembered and stepped away.

"Sorry, I won't be all clingy. I can be good."

"Come here, I missed you," I said, holding her tightly. Her lips tasted like rare wine and she was no keener to end the kiss than I was. We went inside and I saw she had not been coping so well. The apartment was messy and she apologised and admitted she had been killing time any way she could, and that involved going through the magazines on the coffee table and leaving them everywhere, sorting her clothing on her bed and not putting anything away, and the drier was full of long dried washing.

We cleaned up the place together, then I asked where she slept if she was using her bed for a sorting station.

"Your bed. I tried to sleep without the sleeping pills and had a horrible night so I went back on them."

"You take sleeping pills?" I asked.

"I have taken them ever since we got here, so you could have some peace and quiet at night and not have to baby me."

"What if I liked comforting you?" I asked."I never babied you. I was just there for you to hold."

"Can we do that again?" she asked.

"I don't know what's right, nobody tells me how to treat you."

"Then let's make up our own minds. Do you want me to sleep in your bed with you?" she asked.

"Sure, if you want to," I answered.

"Do you want to take me out on dates instead of Garrett?"

"Okay, Garrett's not my type, too tall," I replied and she slapped me. "Bella, haven't you built a rapport with him? You spent most days in his company."

"Sure, we are friends. No spark, Edward."

"Oh," I grinned. "Right. No spark."

"I only spark with you, like you only spark with me."

"Gotcha."

"Is it bedtime yet?" she asked.

I looked at the clock. 5.23pm.

"Near enough. Come on, love. Let's get some sleep. Or we could go on a date?"

"Nope, sleep," she decided and stripped down to her blue lace panties and climbed in her side.

I threw off everything but my boxers and joined her. I wanted to touch every inch of that soft skin I had been missing.

She wanted to touch several inches of me, but I was unsure what the rules were. Damned psychologists, they need to hand out handbooks for the partners of their clients so we know what we can and can't do.

In the end we simply gave each other pleasure with our hands and let Les help out and we snuggled down to sleep afterwards and neither of us needed sleeping pills.

Bella had to work the next day and I unpacked and drifted around the campus, waiting for her to finish her shift at the ice cream parlour. Garrett found me mid afternoon and shook my hand.

"Hey man, she was a wreck last week. She was afraid to go home alone and I did offer to stay overnight, I admit."

"Did she let you?" I asked. I really wanted to know. I knew he hadn't been there two nights at least.

"Sure, I got to sleep on the sofa. Nearly did my back in but she didn't want me in her bed or yours. That sofa is too small."

"Thanks, Garrett."

"So, experiment's over?" he asked.

"I've given in. She wants me to date her and she wants us back together as a couple. I don't know what's right and what's wrong but making her anxious isn't the aim so I guess until someone of authority says otherwise, she's back in my bed."

"Lucky bastard, I never got her into mine," he sighed.

"Thanks for that, man," I replied, shaking his hand again.

"Oh believe me, it wasn't my choice. I would have been sleeping with her months ago if she would have let me. Very determined girl, is Bella. Knows what she wants. I have a girlfriend of sorts and I suppose it would have been cheating anyway so Bella saved me from that guilt."

"Bella knows?" I questioned.

"Edward, Bella and I come under the 'great friends, willing to help one another out' category, nothing more. I love Kate, Bella loves you, and neither of you will allow us to be in the relationships we want to be in and know are right. You two have pushed us together, you are both lucky that girl is so strong and loyal."

He was right about that.

We went on our first date that night and Bella was quiet and a little reserved and I could see her mind working.

"Let's get married."

"What? You don't believe in marriage. You've told me often enough."

"A girl can change her mind."

"I guess she can. But what about all your life experiences?"

"Isn't marriage an experience?" she asked.

"I guess we could get engaged and see what reaction that gets us."

She smiled and filled our glasses and raised hers.

"To us."

"To us," I replied and clinked our glasses.

"To us and everyone else can go screw themselves," she said.

It was hard not just returning to where we had been before we came away to college but I wanted to do things right the third time round. This was make or break time. No sex until we were married.

Amend that to, no actual real penetrative sex until we were married. Plenty of other types of sex. It was different, again, more like high school sex, and Bella was not frantic. She knew now I was never going to leave her unless she sent me away, and we had time. We were committed, and we shopped for her engagement ring the next day.

She pounced on the first one they showed us and I laughed at her.

"We can look. You have to wear this ring every day of forever, I would prefer you liked it."

So we looked and compared and tried to narrow down what style she preferred and we came up with small, pretty, no diamonds, and then we both saw the perfect ring at the same time. In the light, it shone green, in the shade or indoors, it looked brown. Soft mossy green to gentle velvet brown. Both our favorite colors. It was shot with bright blue veins that made it sparkle and catch your eye. The stone was some type of opal, and we both knew it was the one for us. Bella allowed the small diamonds that surrounded the larger stone seeing it was not a typical engagement ring and she liked to be different and this stone was perfect.

I wished we could go home to the meadow and I could slide it onto her finger there, just the two of us, alone. To my surprise, she agreed and once again, I was driving back to Forks.

X~x~X

Emmett's POV

"What do you think they are doing out there?" Esme asked, looking out the window. Edward's car was in the driveway but neither he nor Bella had come inside at all, just took one another's hand and ran next door, up the path to his meadow.

"Going on what they were doing last time I went there to check on them, I'd say stay away or at least make lots of noise to let them know you are approaching," I warned her.

"Emmett, they are young and in love. I know what people in love do. I just meant, why now? Why come home to the meadow to do that? They have the apartment."

"You are right! I think something special is happening. Do you have an engagement cake in the freezer?"

"Why would I? Oh, I see what you mean. It's inevitable so I should have been prepared. I wonder if the bakery has anything suitable. Emmett, take me to the shops."

Esme bought the largest fruitcake available and she and Rose spent an hour icing it and then making little pink and blue flowers out of the icing mixture.

They were just putting the final touches on when the two people in question came inside.

"Mom, Emmett, Rose, we have an announcement," Edward said, smiling at Bella. She looked at me then at the cake on the table and grinned.

"Edward.." I started to say and Bella shushed me.

"Let him say it."

"Bella has consented to becoming my wife. We know it won't thrill a lot of people but this is what we want and we see no reason to delay it further. We are engaged to be married."

"That's wonderful news, what a surprise," Esme said and Rose laughed.

"So surprised. Do you like the cake we coincidentally made in case anyone chose today to get engaged? What luck! Who saw that coming?"

"You made this for us?" Edward asked, looking amazed.

"Emmett and I figured it out. You two, driving all the way home, disappearing into the meadow."

"I knew you weren't out there pressing wildflowers to keep in a book," I said, watching their faces. Oh yes, Bella was blushing madly. Edward narrowed his eyes at me.

"We may have pressed a few flowers, it is a hobby we have taken up," he stated boldly.

X~x~x

**What did you think of the MTV Movie Awards? They should rename it the Robert Pattinson Show, he was on stage more than the compare. They really shouldn't let the boy ad lib. I'm an editor and I'm used to cleaning up people's writing and filling in the gaps. I think the way his joke to Reese was meant to go was;**

"**You had my scene where you played my mother, removed from Vanity Fair and I didn't have yours, where you played my lover, removed from Water For Elephants. You fucked me over in VF but at least in WFE, I got to fuck you."**

**Then she said,"That makes you the greatest motherfucker in Hollywood."**

**(Reese 1, RPatz 0)**


	17. Chapter 17

Obviously I've decided to write something else for group so lemon warning.

SEX ALERT

**Why do I hate Winter again? Oh yeah, because all those flu infected people visit and share their germs with me. Written under the influence of medication. That's my excuse.**

**Thanks to MAC for her invaluable advice. I will follow it next story!**

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 17

We decided the actual formal engagement party should wait and we should at least make a show of dating. Bella was all for just practicing to be a married couple but that was counter productive. I was confused because being engaged meant being exclusive in my eyes and Aro was never going to agree with that. In the end, we compromised and decided to double date with other couples, and not specify to him who was with who.

Deceptive, maybe? The fact is, we aren't like normal couples. We have history and we both know how we want this to end up. Bella's perfectly right, her screwing around could only hurt her because it isn't something she wants to do. Because the ring isn't an obvious engagement ring, we are making no announcements at college.

Most people accept us as a couple now and think nothing of it but Bella knows if she does ever want to date someone else, we can talk. I'm not tying her down, and the engagement is not a straight jacket binding her to me and away from others. It's more a promise of how we both want the future to be.

Aro pisses me off by constantly encouraging my girl to 'explore her options' and he wants full details of her dates. She hates that so she decided to tell him what we did together without actually specifying it was us, just her and the date she had been with the night before.

It's kind of funny because she comes home after a session and says things like "Aro says I should be having full sex with my dates by now so you have been ordered by a professional have sex with me."

"Fine, then tell me who I am tonight and we can go at it like rabbits," I teased. I'm not sure role playing is good for someone as previously fragile as Bella was, but she is totally into it.

"We are doubling with Tiffany and Daniel tonight, so I guess I get to call you Danny later."

"Or at least you get to sigh it a lot," I replied.

It seems like madness but on the other hand, it's a way for Bella to have all these sexual experiences with 'other men' as required and it will allow us some sexual release but as Edward and Bella, we do not have sex.

When Tiffany calls to cancel the date, Bella and 'Danny' go out alone together, which will thrill Aro.

Daniel is something of a Goth I guess, all black clothing, eye make-up so Bella delights in getting me ready and I shake my head at my image in the mirror. Little bit to old for eyeliner and mascara, but whatever.

She pulls a black knitted beanie over my hair seeing I refuse to put a black rinse through it for one night.

"How do you know Danny and I won't hit it off and be an amazing couple and date for months?" she growls as she tucks my copper locks away.

"Maybe you will. Is he kinky?" I ask hopefully.

"How would I know, it's our first date," she growls back.

It turns out 'Dan' likes having sex in the backseat of my car, which he borrowed. They started out being well behaved at dinner but honestly, some young guys today are just after one thing. She's no sooner finished eating in their secluded dimly lit booth in the deserted back section than his hands are all over her, under the table. Luckily the tablecloth hides the fact he is running his fingers up her thigh, under her skirt.

"Edward," she breathes loudly as his fingers brush against her damp panties.

"Dan" I correct her and she blinks.

"Dan, my God, your fingers are so long, just like Edward's," she replies, pushing her panties to one side.

"You are a little forward for a first date, Miss Swan," I/he replies.

I can feel how wet she is, with the lace gone. Her lower lips are pushing against my hand so I slip a finger inside and rub against her nub and she sighs and rocks on my finger. It's driving me crazy and as we are the only two diners down here and can see any waitress approach in the mirrors on the back of the booth, her very bad date pulls her closer and sits her between his open legs so she can feel the effect her body is having on his.

"Oh God, I want that inside me," she whispers and he rubs against her backside as both hands now invade her panties. I like the lace being there, it feels erotic. One hand holds her folds open and the other just strokes gently, softly as he whispers in her ear.

"Does that feel good, baby?"

"Sit me on your knee, properly," she pleads and I growl at her.

"That would be too obvious, anyone walking down here would know we were having sex," I whisper back.

"I don't care," she cries and attacks my hat, pulling it off and rubbing her fingers through my hair. It's okay until she does the nail scratching thing and makes my dick impossibly hard as my scalp moves against her manicured talons.

I wonder if we could get away with it, I can't see any sign of cctv and the other few diners are in the front section at least thirty foot away, and we are divided by a thick bead curtain.

I could see anyone comes through and move her off me.

My fingers are working her and my zip is threatening to rip itself open so I take one hand back and undo my jeans and release my rock hard erection.

Bella stands and leans a little forward and I give in, sliding inside her then sitting her on my lap, working her clit with my fingers. I sort of push up and in and then down, barely moving her, but it feels so good to be so deep inside her. Her walls are clutching at me and that alone is enough to get me off because the set up is so cheeky and public. I rub her frantically under the table and she stiffens and sighs as her orgasm takes her over.

"I felt you come," she whispers and I bite her earlobe.

"Then feel this because you are making me come again," I answer and my dick jerks again and fills her once more. Jesus I didn't even go soft between climaxes.

"Not fair," she growls and I kiss her neck and lift her off me, wiping away the evidence madly with tissues from her purse.

"I think I need to go do that properly in the Ladies," she says and kisses my neck. I clean myself up and redo my fly and shake my head at the sort of men my girl is dating. I would never do anything so bold in a restaurant.

Bella is back in minutes and I hope nobody noticed anything. The waitress comes up as Bella is walking towards me and hands me the check.

"I was going to offer you two dessert but you seemed to be providing your own," she says quietly against my ear and for once, I'm the one blushing.

I leave a large tip and grab my girl and we leave, running to the car.

"That was great but you got off twice and I only did once," she complains as she straps on her seatbelt.

"What you you want to do? We can't go home, you have that room mate," I laugh, referring of course to myself. "I doubt he wants you fucking guys in your bedroom."

"Don't say fucking," she growls at me, looking at my eyes so I can see her own are fiery and she is still aroused and wants more.

"Why can't I say fucking?" I asked, puzzled. "It's the first time we dated and you let me do that at a table in a restaurant and we hardly know one another, do we?"

She agrees with that.

"No, we did just meet, but when you say fucking I think of real hard fucking like my first boyfriend and I used to do in the back of his car back in high school when we had nowhere else to do it."

"Then by all means, let's go recreate what you two did back then," I say.

There are secluded parking lots where such things are rumoured to happen and so we find one and park well away from the other two cars already there, already sporting fogged up windows.

Bella is in the backseat in a flash and the panties are tossed over into her front seat and admittedly, I'm only seconds behind her. My jeans and boxers are off and I start kissing her madly, deeply, roughly as my hands dip inside her dress, pulling down the zip so her breasts fall out and I can maul them properly.

"Fuck me, Edward," she growls.

"God woman, call me by my right name," I growl back.

"Shit, okay, fuck me Dan," she calls out.

She's under me, on her back, legs wide apart and I thrust inside her and start pumping in and out, as hard as I can. Having come twice already, I can keep this up for as long as she needs and she seems to need it hard and rough and prolonged, thrusting her hips up to meet mine as I plunge in and out.

"Harder," she cries and I raise my eyebrows. We have not been this ...feral...since those days at school, she is right.

I grab her cheeks in my hands and slam into her as I lift her closer to me and we are literally banging hard and fast until she starts screaming.

"Fuck, fuck, Edwar...Dan, fuck, so hard."

Dan likes the cheer squad and slams inside over and over until she shakes and stills and grabs him in close then he barely gives her a second to recover before thrusting long and hard again for another four or five strokes to get himself off. Dan is no gentleman, she needs to learn that.

I collapse on top of her and kiss her naked breasts as I lay there, panting. She is biting on my earlobe and I pull away.

"Stop it, Dan is a horny animal who hasn't gotten any for months, he will fuck you again if you keep that up."

"Poor Danny, does he like fucking, hard?" she whispers in my ear and I move off her and roll her over, entering my rock hard dick from the back and grabbing her boobs in my hands as I thrust inside her again. She sits up with her back flush against my chest and starts rubbing her own clit and I can see it in the mirror and it just drives me insane, she has never done that in front of me before.

"Bellaaa, fuck hot Bella" I cry and push her onto her hands and knees and slam inside her again and again, my head full of the image in the mirror, and I can feel her hand working her down there so I add my own finger and help hers along.

It's too much and she comes spectacularly and I finish seconds behind at her screams.

"Fuck Dan, I think you are better than Edward," and who would have ever thought I would want to hear those words?

X~x~X

We clean up and redress and go home before we both collapse from exhaustion and after she showers in her bathroom and I shower in mine, she timidly knocks at my bedroom door.

"Edward, I'm home. Can I sleep in your bed?"

"Sure," I say, putting down the book I had just picked up and cuddling her in close."Good night?".

"Oh yeah, Dan fucks like a wild man," she admits and I laugh and surround her body with mine.

"If I wasn't so tired and if you and I were having sex, I would outdo him," I answer.

"God I can't wait for that night," she says and cuddles down beside me.

Predictably, Aro is thrilled that Bella is screwing a boy she barely knows in the back of his car after dinner and shenanigans in the restaurant and he gives me a superior smirk as he opens his door and ushers her out to me.

Fucker thinks he knows something I don't know.

"Bella, what's this Dan's last name?" he asks and I immediately think that's so inappropriate.

She shrugs and turns away.

"No idea."

"Good girl, you are progressing well," he says and I take her hand and we leave.

X~x~X

"Who are you dating tonight?" I ask as she twirls around in front of her mirror and her dress flares out and I see no sign of panties.

"I don't know but I think he's a virgin and I have to show him the ropes."

"So, virgin at college? Must be a nerd."

"Okay, he's a nerd. His name is...Cedric."

"No wonder he can't get laid," I sneer.

"Oh he's getting laid tonight," she assures me.

"Be home at a decent time," I warn and comb my hair in a side part that looks horrendous.

I button up the top button on my shirt and add a v necked sweater and the black rimmed glasses I rarely wear.

"God, awesome, a hawt nerd!" she claps her hands and rocks on her tippy toes.

Cedric takes her to a drive-thru for 'dinner', he doesn't have a lot of cash because of his addiction to online gaming...does that cost money?

They park overlooking the city up away from any cars and as predicted, shit gets wild when they move to the back seat. At first he is all scared and touches her chest over the top of her frock and keeps a good six inches between their sides then he gets the courage to kiss her hesitantly.

"Oh my God, my mother would not like me doing this," he says in shock and Bella glares at him.

"Cedric does not live with his Mother," she growls.

"He does, in her converted garage," he replies.

"Then Cedric better get a part time job or Cedric will never get a second round," she decides.

Cedric promises to work at McDonald's and Bella rewards him with his first feel of a naked girl's bits. He's shy and unsure and she gets impatient and puts her hand over his and pushes his fingers inside her.

"Feel that, Cedric? That's a vagina and later your cock is going to come visit inside here and fill it with your jizz."

Cedric blushes and gets excited and his virginal cock starts tapping on his zipper.

Bella pulls his fingers out and drags them along her slit.

"This is an important spot. Feel that there, that's my clit and it likes you very much and you need to treat it well. Think of it as a pet, it needs lots of pats and affection, kisses even."

Cedric's dick likes that idea.

All those ideas.

"I don't know what to do, I've never touched a girl before," Cedric cries. "Please, be gentle with me."

"Bella doesn't usually do gentle, Cedders, but seeing it is your first time and all."

She unzips his fly and releases Cedric's impressive large and hard throbbing cock and moves her hand up and down, up and down.

"See the thing is, Cedric would have just shot his load already if this was his first time," I whisper in her ear.

"No, Cedric has amaaazing staying power," she whispers back. "Should I make his day and suck him off?"

"Oh Christ, Bella, that would make his entire life."

Bella likes that and she smiles and kneels between Cedric's knees and lowers her mouth and takes him into her beautiful lips and keeps one hand at the base still stroking, up and down as Cedric watches in awe.

This never gets old, Cedric will always watch in awe when Bella gives him this favour.

True to form, Cedric is spurting down her throat in no time and Bella swallows and Cedric all but passes out with pleasure.

"Mine turn, now I want you to fuck me."

Cedric is puzzled, what goes where again?

"Cedric, honestly, you spend half your life online, I'm sure you watch plenty of porn."

Cedric nods.

"Then get your ginormous cock inside me and fucking well fuck me like a porn star."

Cedric forgets who he is and channels in Dan and fucks Bella hard until she is screaming someone named Edward's name into the cold night air.

"Bella, just a word to the wise. Bad form shouting other men's names, poor Cedric will be gun shy now."

"Rubbish, you didn't mind, did you Cedric? Remember, boys who get all precious don't get sucked off."

Cedric agrees he doesn't give a shit whose name she yells and he moves up for his next lesson.

Bella shocks him by sitting on his knee, straddling him so their chests are touching and she has enclosed his reawakened cock inside her pussy.

"Now Cedders, lift me up and down, quick or slow as you like."

Cedric does it slowly then loses his patience and his cool and pounds her up and down until they both explode.

Bella kisses him so deeply he thinks she's checking to feel if he has tonsils and he faints and she dismounts and Edward drives them home.

While Bella showers, Edward does the same, quickly and calls her into his bedroom. He has his black sleep pants on and his hair is shiny and damp as he rubs it with a towel.

"Bella, I'm concerned. You are seeing a variety of boys now, I hope you aren't becoming a slut because you will get a reputation and nice boys don't date sluts," I warn her.

"Will you still want me?" she asks.

"Oh, Edward will always want his Bella," I assure her.


	18. Chapter 18

As If I Never Existed

Chapter 18

EPOV

"I'm sick of Aro, all he is doing is turning me into a skank. It feels more like he is my pimp than my doctor."

I have to agree, Bella has grown and regained so much of her former self, all he seems to be doing is encouraging her 'promiscuity'. Mind you, having been the beneficiary of her many dates with various men, I can't say I have hated this stage. I guess regardless of my past with Tanya and the others, I still felt some things were not proper for Bella and I to indulge in, so I got to experience them with her through an alter ego, and it meant she got to do everything she ever wanted while I got to hang on to the pretence Bella and I only did respectable things together in bed.

But, I agree, it's time she stopped 'screwing around' and we moved to the next level and became an exclusive couple.

Aro was not happy but personally I think the man maybe has no sex life of his own and lives through those of his clients. He advises Bella to keep making her appointments but she is strong and thanks him for all his invaluable help and walks away.

I'm proud of her, she knows now what she wants and nobody will stand in her way.

We lay on my bed together and I was lacing our fingers and wondering if we would finally have sex after our first date as an exclusive couple tonight, and she breathed out noisily and sighed.

"What's that for, Baby?" I asked, smiling at her.

"I'm just going to miss some of my boyfriends, a little," she admits.

"Maybe you can teach me what they did that you will be missing," I suggest.

"Edward, you would not do half the things to me that Jack did," she frowns.

Jack was a sex maniac who had a thing for trying out different kinds of condoms and I hadn't realized she had enjoyed him so much. To me, anything between my skin and hers was a tragedy but she had never felt a condom inside her and had invented Jack, and some of the ribbed and grooved varieties apparently turned her on even more than usual. So hard to tell that when every date with every man ended with us both screaming in ecstasy.

I had relented and allowed her to bring her 'dates' home to have sex in her bed, mainly because we often needed to use the shower after certain types of sex, and it was impractical to be doing things like that in the car.

Nobody ever got to sleep over in her bed, never.

After 'he left', she would come into my bed and I would curl my body around her and she would relate the highlights of the night and we would touch one another and have gentle hand sex if she wanted. There was nothing wild and untamed about Bella and Edward, they were loving and respectful but it seemed maybe things would have to change now the other lovers had gone.

Bella kissed my lips and grinned.

"Thank you, so much, by the way," she said.

"For what?" I asked, tucking her hair back off her face. It had grown so long in the past eighteen months, she was finally satisfied with it's length again.

"For all my many lovers, they were all amazing."

"Thank you for allowing them to share your body, especially Cedric. That boy has had quite an education, I feel almost sorry for him now."

"Cedric will be fine. Now he can go date other girls and be confident and out going and know what he's doing."

"Cedric loves Bella, though. He will be heartbroken," I whispered in her ear.

"Bella only ever loved Edward, no matter who else did what to her," she whispered back and I held her tight. She was beyond perfect, this new Bella, a mixture of the old Bella I remembered and the strong individual who had replaced the broken bird of two years ago.

"I think Edward and Bella need to announce their engagement and hurry up and get married," I urged her.

She smiled.

"Okay."

"Really?" I checked. I have been waiting patiently for her to agree to my deepest wish and I had never pushed her.

"Yep, it's what I want. A short engagement and a quick wedding."

"And will Edward and Bella be having a baby any time in the future?" I asked.

Whatever she decides, I won't argue but my dreams nowadays include a pretty little toddler with auburn ringlets being swung in the air between our hands as we walk her along the beach and I wonder if she is real or just something I alone long for.

"Maybe," she says hesitantly. Victoria is doing ten years for James murder but her trial for Bella's abduction is looming on the horizon.

"She will be locked away for a long time," I assure my girl and kiss the top of her head. Bella is much more worldly these days and she no longer sees a threat in every strangers eyes but Vicky is a real and proven enemy and that's a fact. One day she will be released and we will be a proper family long before that and I don't want my Bella panicking every time a child of ours is out of our sight. It wouldn't be fair on the child, either, to be raised believing her life was in constant jeopardy.

This problem cures itself before our wedding even occurs.

Victoria's trial began and Bella stood up and faced her captor and never even shook. She told her story and described the years of fear and loneliness and her medical records backed up the damage those two had done to her.

The fact she had never been sexually assaulted stood in Victoria's favor, she painted herself as the one who allowed the terrible James to do all manner of degrading acts on her body rather than allow him to touch Bella but the diary and written passages describing how she had joined in on the assaults on Joy really denied that scenario as being truthful.

Joy had never been identified, nobody knew who she was or where she came from. Nobody had known her in the village and it was concluded that she must have been a tourist who had wandered far from her expected itinerary thus her loved ones had just not associated the dead girl with their child.

That hit Bella hard because she knew, had James and Vicky ever smuggled her out of the area, she may well have been an unidentified body herself by now.

The day that Victoria was found guilty should have been a happy day for us all but I knew Bella was worried her sentence may end up being served concurrently with her present stretch, and she may be released while any children of ours were still young and vulnerable.

As we waited on the final morning for the court to open to hear her sentencing, it became obvious something was happening. Police were running about and Bella turned and reached for me and I grabbed her into my arms.

"She's escaped, hasn't she?" she cried in terror.

"I don't know, but something has happened."

We were finally called into a room and informed Victoria had been shot and killed in an attempt to escape and I for one, was very glad of that outcome.

Bella was all the stronger for facing her enemy in court and now it truly was all over. My Bella was finally free.

X~x~X

JPOV

So, you are all sitting here thinking, well, that Jason Jenks was a complete waste of time and money, right?

Ha, if only you knew.

I knew where Bella Swan was from the day James took her. I had his back, I made sure there were no clues and nobody looking too closely his way.

What was in it for me?

Firstly, the entire Cullen family piss me off, just because they have money they think they can do no wrong. They think they are picture perfect and deserve to all live happily ever after. Not like the rest of us. One small kid goes to school with a few bumps and bruises and they call in the new local doctor, all young and eager, and he decides this child needs to be taken away from the only home he knows. It's not bad enough his real parents are dead and all he has in the world is his older brother and his Pa?

No, so off young Jason Laurent goes, into a children's home then a foster home and guess what, foster daddy is not exactly an angel either. At least James and Pa only used me as a punching bag. Mr Jenks thought I was his own personal play toy and Mrs Jenks was glad for the break. While he bothered me, he left her alone.

I knew exactly who that Edward was that Bella Swan was crying over.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is sit back and just let the world turn and guess what, not only did I have Edward Cullen hire me and keep me on retainer for eight fucking years, I also got the pleasure of seeing Carlisle Cullen, that brilliant fucking doctor, see how it felt to have his own family torn apart.

When Tory blew James away, I was more than happy to take a more active role. Just answering my phone as 'The Government' was hardly a chore. Chief Swan played right into my hands and gave me a legitimate reason to be seen visiting the lovely Tory despite the police protection and she was just as happy with the younger Laurent brother in her bed. No, make that, she was far happier.

We had tasted each other's delights many times before but suddenly we were going on police sanctioned dates together and laughing ourselves silly as I related to her the reports I made to Charlie Swan.

"Oh I'm sure Miss Tory is as pure as the freshly fallen snow, Charlie. That bad James fooled her alright, she's heartbroken."

It kept him away for a time and made things easier all round.

I actually sat there at Charlie's desk and listened as he spewed out all the pain Bella's disappearance had caused him and all the time, I was sitting there thinking about the times I had sat at James' table and watched little Bella on the cctv. Hell, I even ate a meal with her once along with James and Tory, when she was fully trained. She never even raised her eyes to look at my face.

I could probably stand a foot in front of her and not have her know who I was.

Course, even moron that he is he finally worked out it was most likely Tory that shot my brother.

Why did she kill James?

Convenience mainly, and boredom.

He was too willing, too complacent.

Tory likes a man who is a challenge, not a fucking puppet.

"Don't fuck Bella, James" she says and he never even tries.

What she wanted was for him to slap her around and demand the girl join them in their bed by the time she was properly broken.

I'm much closer to the type of man she needs.

I killed the cop for her, too easy.

I just about had Tory convinced we had to off Edward and leave Alice to slowly starve in cold storage when Bella somehow found the courage to defy her captor and lock Tory in the bathroom and escape, thus freeing them all.

I had all these plans, five years of sharing a bed with both Tory and Bella then maybe I would have offed Tory once Alice was dead , and there you would have had it. MY Happy Ever After.

Oh well, at least I inherited everything James owned.

I know what you are thinking, he wouldn't dare start up where James left off. He wouldn't dare bring home a girl and put her in that Box because it's been done before but think about it. Bella Swan lived in that Box and basement undetected for eight years. The mistake James and Tory made was letting her out alone, or at all.

I think if a girl spends five years in The Box, she will be ecstatic to be free to wander that basement and never even long for the great outdoors. I won't be a lazy cow and use my captives to do my household chores, either, that just gives them opportunities.

Officer Tom is still in touch. I drop in, spend time with him and his wife Afton and his kids, Pete and Charlotte and that stupid show dog. Who pays that kind of money for a fucking dog, right?

And his daughter is forever letting it slip out the gate past her then it's everybody out in the street calling for Mr Puffles.

Fucking poodles, I can live without ever seeing another one again.

But Mr Puffles is a special friend of mine and I slip him treats when nobody is looking because dog is man's best friend.

Charlotte's a very pretty girl and just turned thirteen, such a great age. Add it up, thirteen plus five years in The Box equals eighteen, folks, that's the age she will be when I let her live in the basement. Course I've done some renovations down there as well as the basement I ripped out the second bedroom, put in a proper functioning bathroom, and converted the leftover space into a very nice playroom because unlike James, I like hardcore games.

You know, shackles on the walls, whips, chains, and of course canes, I just love that sweet sound as they whip through the air.

Then I built a new and improved Box.

Smaller,so it will be like being locked upright in a coffin. All four walls touching against your body from all sides at once. No head room, it's a mere five foot tall so any girl will have to be slightly hunched. Just to make them all the more relieved when I finally release her into the play room.

Who would choose to go back inside that monstrosity of complete darkness compared to the fun and games area? I'm sure my girl will soon decide she is happy and willing to play with me. Anything to delay being put away again.

Well the renovations are all done and guess what, it's Wednesday and I know what happens tomorrow because I have been watching Miss Charlotte as she pretends to catch the school bus every Thursday and instead sneaks off to join her friends in the arcade.

Once again, never dismiss the usefulness of just sitting and waiting and letting the future come to you.

I'm parked around the corner and here comes Mr Puffles, he's escaped as Charlotte heads for the bus stop again.

I open my car door, and wave around a nice juicy strip of fresh steak and he's in my car and we are gone before anyone even gets to the corner.

A night in the basement and he's still asleep when I'm ready to leave after breakfast.

I tie him to a tree and slip him a doggy tranquiliser and he is back in dreamland.

Now I just need to 'bump' into Charlotte as she escapes from the bus stop before she gets near that arcade and tell her about how I found poor Mr Puffles caught in a bear trap in the forest and how I need her help to free him and get him to the vet and she'll get into my car willingly and come with me, I can guarantee it.

Why wouldn't she, I'm not a stranger.

She knows all about stranger danger but nobody warned her about family friends.

And here she is.

School uniform gone, civvies on, bag on her back.

Sneaking in through the back alley and there's not even any witnesses and the security cameras are strangely broken, I think they had an accident late last night.

"Charlotte, thank God,I found your dog but he's hurt, he's in the forest. Gosh, Tom must be mad about him getting out."

"He escaped yesterday when I left for school, I'm so glad you found him. You saved my life."

"Glad to help but I need you to come and help me free his leg from a bear trap, the vet's meeting me at my house but he is in emergency surgery and can't be there for half an hour. And poor Mr Puffles is in such pain, we need to free him now."

"Oh no, I hope he's going to be all right."

"I'm sure he will be. That's it, just shut that door properly and put on your seat belt, Charlotte, safety first."

X~x~X

EPOV

Bella is quiet in the car and I can't think of what to do to help her feel better. It does seem kind of anti climatic, knowing Victoria had been found guilty and waiting to hear how much time she would do, then, suddenly, she's dead and it's all over.

"I think I need to go to that house and just see it again, and know I did escape and I did survive and I'm okay now. Better. Stronger. I just need some type of closure, Edward."

"I think that's a good idea. I know you feel torn about Vicky dying but at least this way, while she won't ever pay for what she put you through, at least she can never harm anyone else again."

Bella turned and smiles radiantly.

"Edward, we can have a baby."

"We can, my love, as soon as you want."

"Do we have to wait for the wedding?"

One would think getting married would be a straight forward event but Esme and Alice are both buzzing around madly making sure every detail is perfect and that the napkins match the table clothes or whatever and all Bella and I want is to be together forever in every way, including in the eyes of the law.

"That's entirely up to you, love. I don't mind if we start married life with a little baby already underway in your belly. Just do whatever you need to do. If you prefer to wait until after the nuptials, I will agree to that as well. You are in charge of your own life, Bella. Do things your way."

She smiles and reaches for my hand.

"I think it's our decision, not just mine."

"You are right, again. But I will never stop you doing anything you want to, you know that. I want you to be happy."

"I am happy. I feel like seeing the house and being able to walk out that door again, together, will end everything bad and really allow us to begin our life together. Our forever. Maybe we can start trying for a baby tonight."

I grin at that thought.

"Sounds like a plan."

Bella just needs to draw that line between her past and our future and nothing will ever stand in her way again.

The house looks different, cleaner.

"It's been painted," Bella says as we approach. "Do we need permission to come here? Does anyone own it now?"

"I have no idea. Maybe the estate had it cleaned up to sell. Let's try the door."

Bella barely hesitates and the door swings free as she turns the new doorknob.

We both hesitate as the furniture inside is all new and the whole interior has been updated. The kitchen has been torn out and renewed, the sitting room is full of leather sofas and a flat screen covers much of one wall.

"We can't go inside, somebody new lives here," she says.

The trapdoor is open and I have to look and see what's been done down below.

"Wait here and call if anyone comes," I tell her and walk across the room.

Alarm bells shriek in my head.

Whoever that unknown accomplice was has clearly improved the trap and is probably out getting himself a girl right now. No phone coverage inside, we have to get the Hell out here and inform the police.

X~x~X

JPOV

I stop still as I spy the two of them at the door. I hadn't bothered locking it as I intended getting Charlotte inside and downstairs quick smart and now that fucking Edward and Bella are in my way.

"What's all the signs up for?" Charlotte asks, as if she's too stupid to read them herself.

"They are allowing hunters in some zones here. No hikers are allowed in the area for the next week. The deer cull is on. Don't go past that fence over there or someone will mistake you for Bambi."

"Where's Mr Puffles?" Charlotte asks and I turn and lead her into the woods. Her dog barely responds to her anxious voice as she falls down beside his still body and starts crying and patting him.

"This isn't a bear trap, he's just tied up," she says with relief.

I'm standing there, madly trying to decide what to do. Go to the house and shoot those two busybodies? But then I have bodies to dispose of and Charlotte will be screaming her fool head off. Nobody here cares what anyone else does in general but I'm sure nobody wants the cops back again like when James was killed.

"Charlotte, clearly Mr Puffles needs help, take him to my car and I'll be there in a few minutes. Lock yourself inside and don't open the door to anyone but me."

She scoops the hairy white canine into her arms and does what I say.

I step over the fence into the restricted zone so I can sneak up on my callers and surprise them by coming up behind them.

X~x~X

Emmett's POV

Jasper has shot four deer and I have shot exactly none and I'm rather pissed off. Since when did he become a crack shot and I lose my touch?

"Come on, bro. We are only allowed to kill five deer in any one trip, don't forget," he reminds me yet again.

"Then you put your rifle down and let me have the last one, at least," I holler. Fucking restrictions on how many deer a hunting party may cull pisses me off, there was a time when you could shoot as many as you wanted. There are so many here in this forest they are eating all the vegetation and starving to death, so the total hunting ban has been lifted and a restricted licence is granted to experienced hunters only.

Next time I will fucking come alone, that's for sure, and bagging all five on my own.

A flash of brown moves inside the zone and I raise my rifle and shoot. It goes down but the sound of the animal hitting the ground alerts me to the fact is is either a very small deer or some other animal entirely.

"Emmett, Rosie is in labor, we have to go," Jasper calls, holding up his cell phone and I decide to accept this face saving excuse to leave without my clearly pathetically small kill.

My wife is delivering our third set of twins today and this time it's one of each. I think our family is probably complete now, as far as Rosalie is concerned and I guess I can settle for six kids. Still outnumber Jasper with his mere two, Joshua and Jacinta, and Edward and Bella have yet to even begin.

"Come on Bro, I'll show you how a real man makes babies," I shout and we run for the truck.

X~x~X

_Local Private Detective Shot Dead In Hunting Accident _reads the headline of Forks Times.

Most people in Forks and Meadowlea have never heard of Jason Jenks so the story is a one day wonder. More interesting is the news that House Of Fear has been renovated ready for some evil bastard to carry on where James and Victoria left off.

The police had responded to a call by a member of the public but the man had failed to identify himself on the phone and was no longer there when they arrived. The house will be destroyed in the interests of public safety.

In the Birth Notices, the locals are pleased to read the new Cullen twins, Rebecca and Raphael are doing well after a scary delivery that left them both needing a few days in Special Care but they are fine and will be released any day now.

All the family had been summoned urgently to the Delivery Suite when things looked bad, but Forks favorite Dr Carlisle Cullen is photographed on the front page the following week with his new grandchildren and many more people read that front page than ever had bothered a week earlier.

THE END


End file.
